Nevada Casino and Sportsbook Industry Hits New Records in 2025
Headlines all over mainstream news websites and social media throughout 2025 declared grim times for casinos in Nevada - but that turned out to be only part of the story.
According to the Nevada Gaming Control Board, casino revenue in the state hit a new record of $15.8 billion over the course of the calendar year. That marks a fifth consecutive year that another all-time high was reached.
Casinos on the Las Vegas Strip - which for many tourists is the only relevant sector for gambling - took in $8.8 billion in revenue, which was nearly identical to the 2024 figure.
Tourism dipped on the Strip, while casino revenue increased
However, the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority recently reported that tourism to the southern Nevada region - including the iconic Strip - dropped 7.5% to 38.5 million visitors in 2025. That was coupled with a slight drop in average nightly hotel rates, with estimated causes that include ever-increasing "convenience fees" and a lessening appetite to visit Las Vegas by foreign tourists.
Of the four tiers of annual revenue on the Strip analyzed by the authority, the biggest gains were by casinos in the most budget-friendly tier - up 11.8% - while casino operators in the middle tiers saw revenue declines. The highest-end Strip properties, each with annual revenues over $72 million, experienced a modest 1.5% gain from 2024.
The lower-cost Downtown Las Vegas casinos reported the largest growth of any casino sector in the state, up 13.8%, while their higher-end neighboring properties gained less than 2%.
Casinos in Laughlin, Boulder, and Washoe County all reported overall gains in 2025, although the North Shore Lake Tahoe casino properties in the latter county declined in revenue by 7%.
Nevada sportsbooks closed 2025 with a flourish
The sportsbooks in Nevada took in a total of just over $140 million in revenue in the final two months of 2025, marking the best two-month span in more than two years. In fact, November and December each rank in the top six in monthly revenue in Nevada sportsbooks history.
A majority of the $67.6 million collected in December came from football wagers, marking a stark shift from a forgettable December 2024 for sportsbook operators who experienced a collective loss from football bets for that month - roughly a once-in-a-decade occurrence.
The reversal came as the sportsbooks reported a "hold" of customer wagers in December of 9.1% - well above the typical monthly result in the state. Betting on basketball led to a 5% drop in sportsbook revenue in 2025.
A total betting handle of $8.1 billion in the state in 2025 - a tiny gain from 2024 figures - contrasts with a robust $12.2 billion wagered on sporting events in longtime rival New Jersey last year.
Sportsbook operators across the U.S. look forward to the annual Super Bowl, now held in early February. The game tends to be lucrative for the books, because many casual sports fans have no “edge” of knowledge on the house – and also because many of them enjoy trying longshot multi-leg parlay bets which provide much larger profits for the sportsbooks.
Nevada regulators have monitored state sportsbook revenues from the last 35 Super Bowls, and gamblers only came out ahead twice.
The first time was in 1995, when the dominant and popular San Francisco 49ers as expected trounced the Los Angeles Chargers. Then in 2008, the New York Giants were such a large underdog against the undefeated New England Patriots that countless gamblers – especially those with New York-area roots who were in town – decided to take a chance on the Giants to win the game outright, given the long odds. The Giants’ shocking upset victory resulted in a second net loss for the sportsbooks.
Read More
