Las Vegas Sports Books are reported to have lost over a half-million bucks during the month of July according to the Nevada State Gaming Control Board. July is traditionally the slowest month of the year for sports wagering and this year was no exception.
Although sports books operating in the state of Nevada won $3.19 million from wagers on major league baseball in July, those impressive earnings were still not enough to keep the books in the black.
The major set-back was from outstanding tickets on basketball wagers which totaled a whopping $2.8 million… which, combined with football and “other sports”, sent the books into the red ink for July.
The last losing month for Nevada Sports Books was back in November when they had to pay out a little over $8 million to bettors including $5.2 on winning football wagers. Winnings for the books in July were down 56.2% from July of last year. This year the Vegas books held only 2.9% of all money bet on baseball. Are bettors getting sharper?
As baseball is the only major sport active in the month of July, there simply was not much money coming in on other markets. Still in all, counting the $3.19 million won on baseball in July, the Nevada based books have taken in over twenty million dollars since the MLB season began back in April.
During the month of June, Vegas books took in $3.37 on basketball alone. Note that this includes both college hoops action as well as the NBA.
The big books on the Las Vegas strip got hit harder than most places in July. They had to payout almost two and a half million dollars on outstanding basketball wagers while winning only $1.5 million on MLB in July… which amounts to a loss of $1.7 million in that area alone.
Golf, Tennis, MMA, Boxing, Soccer and even Ice Hockey make up what the guys in Las Vegas call ‘other sports’. Normally, during most of the year, the ‘others’ are solid money makers for the books. They brought in $2.6 million in June, $1.18 million in May and $1.9 million in the month of April.
But don’t cry too hard for the Nevada crowd. All in all, Nevada casinos won over $792 million in June and over $925 million in July though that was down from the over one billion earned last year.
