Visitation to Las Vegas down 5.2% in November

Visitation to Las Vegas was down again in November, dropping 5.2 percent year over year, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

In November, visitor volume fell to 3.1 million people despite the city hosting the Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Automotive Aftermarket Week show, which includes the Specialty Equipment Market Association trade show, the largest convention Las Vegas hosts each year, and three Raiders home games.

Although 160,000 people attended SEMA this year, total convention attendance was off 0.2 percent for the month to 547,000, according to the agency.

But Nevada casino gaming win is closing out 2025 strong with the second straight monthly percentage increase in November and it did it without a big boost from the Strip, the Nevada Gaming Control Board reported Wednesday.

The state’s 441 licensed casinos won $1.34 billion from gamblers, a 2.4 percent increase over 2024, which was the fourth-best month this year and the second-best November on record.

Nearly every tourism metric was down

It was the 11th-straight month of visitation declines for Las Vegas. Nearly every tourism metric was down compared with November 2024, including hotel occupancy (down 2 percentage points to 79.4 percent), average daily room rates (down 2.9 percent to $193.04 a night with downtown rates off 10 percent to $90.04 a night) and revenue per available room, a profitability performance metric (down 8.4 percent to $153.27).

Only highway traffic numbers and gaming win were improved, with the Nevada Department of Transportation saying traffic on major highways to Las Vegas up 2.4 percent to 134,190 average daily vehicles and traffic at the California-Nevada border up 2.5 percent to 46,040 daily vehicles on average. NDOT does not differentiate between local vehicles and those carrying tourists.

Last week, the Clark County Department of Aviation reported that passenger levels in November were down 9.6 percent to 4.3 million, the steepest monthly decline of 2025.

The overall visitation average for 2025 is down 7.4 percent to 35.5 million people over 11 months.

Gaming win

While the Strip’s $784.3 million win in November represents 58.2 percent of the state’s total take, November win was down 0.6 percent from a year ago.

But there were double-digit percentage increases in other submarkets within Clark County with the Boulder Strip up 20 percent to $79.5 million, Laughlin up 11.6 percent to $38 million, Mesquite up 10.7 percent to $18.2 million, and downtown Las Vegas up 10.3 percent to $87.2 million for the month.

The Boulder Strip performance was the best among 19 submarkets tracked by the Control Board, beating an 18.5 percent increase in outlying Washoe County.

Of the 19 submarkets, only five had performances below November 2024 with South Lake Tahoe showing a 4.6 percent dip to $13.8 million.

Gaming industry analyst Daniel Politzer of New York-based J.P. Morgan, said Strip volumes “were solid and consistent with operator commentary” with Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix results being slightly up. Hold on baccarat, the most volatile table game in the casino, was at a fairly normal 14.7 percent, though lower than November 2024’s more favorable 17 percent.

Shelley Newell, senior economic analyst with the Control Board, said for the calendar year, statewide gaming win is up 1.5 percent over last year.

Newell added that Southern Nevada markets continue to outperform last year with win up 6.7 percent in Mesquite, 4.5 percent in North Las Vegas, 3.3 percent on the Boulder Strip, 1.9 percent downtown, 1.8 percent in Laughlin, 1 percent in outlying Clark County, which includes Henderson and southwest Las Vegas, and 0.7 percent on the Strip.

It was the 57th consecutive month that gaming win exceeded $1 billion in the state.

The resulting gaming tax collections for the first half of the fiscal year is up 4.9 percent for the year to $513.3 million which goes to the state’s general fund.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on X.