NCAA basketball helps set Nevada sports betting record for March

CARSON CITY — NCAA basketball helped set a sports betting record in March in Nevada, but the heavy wagering did not translate to a positive statewide gaming win for the month, the Gaming Control Board reported Thursday.

Nevada’s casinos won $922 million from gamblers in March, a 3 percent decrease over the same month in 2015, the monthly gaming report showed.

Gaming Control Board Senior Research analyst Michael Lawton said there was an expectation that March would have been better than the final numbers showed. There were some big events to draw in players, including Justin Bieber at the MGM Grand Garden on March 25 and the Conor McGregor-Nate Diaz UFC fight on March 5 at the same venue.

March Madness brought out the sports bettors, and an all-time record for the month of $458 million was bet on sports, he said. The amount wagered on basketball of $422 million in March was the highest for the sport ever of any month, Lawton said.

While there is no breakout between professional and college hoops, anecdotally the estimate is that about 70 percent of the basketball betting volume in March was due to March Madness, he said.

But the hold was down, and sports books won $9.7 million, off 47.7 percent over March 2015. The hold was 2.1 percent this year versus 4.5 percent last year, he said.

For baccarat, the card game played by high rollers, the win was $65.7 million, down only 3.5 percent from March 2015, Lawton said. But the volume of betting was off, down by 28.6 percent or $233.9 million over March 2015. It was the lowest volume since April 2013, he said.

David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at UNLV, said the most notable element of the March report was the fall-off in baccarat play.

“The actual drop in the level of play was almost one third,” he said. “That is a lot of money. There was a lot less betting on baccarat than in March of 2015.”

Schwartz said he does not know what factors may have contributed to the lower level of play.

While March was a down month, for the fiscal year that started July 1, 2015, through March, statewide gaming win has increased 1 percent and totals $8.4 billion.

The Strip saw a win of $486.8 million in March, a 3.59 percent decrease over March 2015. For the fiscal year, the Strip is down fractionally at 0.14 percent with a total win of $4.78 billion.

The March report follows a statewide win of 8 percent in February when every geographic jurisdiction showed an increase for the month after taking advantage of the extra leap year day in comparison to last year.

Just about every jurisdiction in Clark County was down in March. Downtown Las Vegas was down 4.2 percent with a win of $51.3 million. North Las Vegas was down 8.8 percent.

In other areas of the state, Washoe County was down fractionally as well at 0.1 percent. But Reno was up 1.1 percent with a win of $47 million.

Gaming tax collections for the 2016 fiscal year are up marginally at 0.47 percent over 2015 and total $581.1 million.

Contact Sean Whaley at swhaley@reviewjournal.com or 775-461-3820. Find him on Twitter: @seanw801