According to the old adage, “The house always wins.” Well, someone may want to change that way of thinking now that Nevada sportsbooks are in the red.
That’s right. For the first time in 83 months, Nevada sportsbooks were on the losing end. According to numbers from the Nevada Gaming Control Board. It is the first statewide loss since July 2013, when it lost $548,000.
What Caused the Loss in Money for Nevada Sportsbooks?
One of the big reasons for the loss was that $5.2 million in outstanding football bets were finally cashed in on. Obviously, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, people were not able to travel and go into casinos and sportsbooks, making that part of the transaction obsolete. In fact, all of the retail sportsbook locations inside casinos were closed in all of April and May.
The casinos in Las Vegas finally opened in June, with plenty of safety protocols in place. However, the state’s gaming industry and has been suffering losses everywhere during the pandemic. Nevada casinos’ net overall gain from April through June was down 80 percent in the year-by-year models.
Luckily, there were some sportsbooks that kept their online portion of the business open during the tough times. New Jersey sportsbooks reported taking in $165 million in bets during the month of June, while Nevada sportsbooks did less than half of that at $78.2 million.
Between April and June, just over $134 million was wagered at Nevada sportsbooks. In comparison, $327.4 million at sportsbooks around the state in April 2019 alone.
Unfortunately, though, a lot of the popular sports in the United States were shut down, and that left people in a tough position. Instead, we saw people try to get involved in things like Esports or Russian ping pong, which led to either disinterest or frustration in most cases.
The Road to Recovery for Nevada Sportsbooks
In June, Nevada sportsbooks did come out ahead on baseball bets. No, not those of the Major League Baseball variety, rather the Korean Baseball Organization. The list of sports that make up the “other” category included MMA, NASCAR, PGA, and golf.
This loss for Nevada is nothing more than a numerical misnomer. After all, most of the money due was all the way back from the football season. And, in total, the loss wasn’t even over $100 million!
Nevada will be right back to normal here within the next few days. MLB has already gotten underway, despite some mishandling with the positive COVID-19 cases. Tonight, the National Basketball Association will begin to play with a two-game slate, and the National Hockey League will start its reboot on Saturday with a five-game slate.
It will certainly make for an interesting time on the sports calendar with three of the country’s biggest sports going on simultaneously. One has to wonder how fans will handle the mass haul of sports that are on the calendar each day. It’s almost like eating too much cake at the party – you just have to know when enough is enough.
