Las Vegas Strip Struggles Persist as Gaming Revenue Slows Five Percent in March

Posted on: April 29, 2025, 02:26h. 

Last updated on: April 29, 2025, 02:34h.

Devin O'Connor @CasinoorgDevinO Read More
Expertise: Asia Pacific Gaming, Commercial Gaming, Legislation, Politics.
  • Nevada casino revenue hit $1.27 billion in March 2025
  • The Las Vegas Strip continues to experience a slowdown
  • April presents a better year-over-year comparable

March marked yet another difficult month for the Las Vegas Strip in terms of gaming revenue, visitation, and hotel bookings.

Las Vegas Strip casino revenue Nevada
Pedestrians cross the Las Vegas Strip via a footbridge from the New York-New York Hotel & Casino. Las Vegas Strip casino resorts struggled in March as visitation to Southern Nevada tumbled. (Image: Shutterstock)

Data supplied by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB), and Harry Reid International Airport reveal that the economic concerns raised recently for Southern Nevada are certainly with merit.

The LVCVA says visitor volume dropped almost 8% in March from a year ago. Casino hotel room bookings on the Strip crashed by over 6%. The average nightly rate for a Strip resort room remained under $200 before resort fees and taxes.

With a slightly less-packed event calendar and as-yet unclear impacts of evolving federal policies rippling through international and domestic markets, visitation saw a 7.8% YoY decline as the destination hosted approximately 3.39 million visitors,” the LVCVA reported.

Airport traffic slowed by 4%, with LAS serving almost 200K fewer passengers in March 2025 than in March 2024. Strip casinos kept $681.7 million of players’ bets, a year-over-year decline of 4.8%, or $34.2 million.

Baccarat, the game of choice among many Asian players, was responsible for the revenue breakdown. The player vs. banker game posted revenue of $72.8 million, a 34% plunge.

The Strip’s struggles pushed statewide gross gaming revenue (GGR) down 1.1% to $1.27 billion. But it marked the 49th month in a row where Nevada casino win was upwards of $1 billion.

March bright spots in Clark County included downtown Las Vegas where GGR climbed about 12% to $85 million, and on the Boulder Strip where casino win surged over 10% to $86.3 million. 

2025 Slowdown

Last year, the Strip ended its run of record-setting GGR by experiencing a 1% revenue decline to about $8.8 billion. Through Q1 2025, Strip win totaled $2.2 billion, flat from the same three months in 2024. However, after a strong start to the year, Strip revenue has slowed considerably over the past two months.

2025 Strip GGR — YoY%

  • January — $840.1 million, up 22.5%
  • February — $690.3 million, down 13.8%
  • March — $681.7 million, down 4.3%

With the Strip being the most important market to the overall health of the Nevada gaming industry, statewide GGR also tumbled in February and March. Along with March GGR win dropping over 1%, February win was $1.21 billion, down over 9%.

Concerns Cited

A slew of issues have been blamed for the visitation and gaming revenue on the Las Vegas Strip.

President Donald Trump’s tariff war is threatening many consumers’ disposable income, as worries about higher costs for goods and services have prompted many middle-class households to rein in their spending.

Trump’s ongoing remarks about making Canada the 51st state have additionally angered many Canadians. Tourism analysts suggest that the president’s comments have turned away some would-be Las Vegas business from Canada. There’s also the thinking that Las Vegas’ continued cost increases for food and beverage, resort fees, and parking, paired with seemingly tighter odds, are keeping visitors away.

The March 2025 calendar had one fewer weekend day than did March 2024. And February was considered a difficult comparable because Las Vegas hosted the Super Bowl in February 2024.

April 2025 has the same number of Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays as April 2024 at 12. Perhaps the April revenue report will present a more telling picture of the Las Vegas Strip and Nevada gaming industries’ 2025 outlooks.