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Different Payouts for Different Places

The megaresort with the most hotel rooms? MGM Grand. Yawn.

Biggest concentrated market? The Strip. Snore.

Headquarters to the biggest casino operating companies? Yup, it's Las Vegas.

But if you're talking about the nation's top slot market and the spot with the best slot payout percentages, you need to go farther north.

No, not Reno. And not Detroit.

Slot players looking for the most bang for their bucks, need look no farther than North Las Vegas.

The Las Vegas suburb's 10 casinos have the most generous slot machine payout percentages in the state, returning 95.68 cents of every dollar wagered over the most recent 12-month period, Nevada Gaming Control Board figures show.

That payback means North Las Vegas casinos kept 4.32 cents of every dollar played, 29.3 percent less than the 6.11 cents Strip casinos collected.

The difference may seem small, but when the penny-and-a-half is multiplied by the amount wagered, the difference is substantial.

"The spread is significant," said Anthony Curtis, publisher of the Las Vegas Advisor, a tourist newsletter. "A typical slot player can easily play 300 times in an hour, and on a dollar machine bet $1,000 per hour."

Based on the control board numbers, a North Las Vegas slot bettor would, on average, have $17.90 more than a Strip bettor after wagering $1,000.

Operators say locals gamblers are savvier, and know when the machines are set for generous payouts.

"It's a locals market, and we own small locals casinos," said Gary Mahoney, owner of the Opera House and Silver Nugget casinos, both in North Las Vegas. "Even though we try to give our customers down-home attention, we also have to give them loose slots to remain competitive."

Casino Player magazine's April issue listed North Las Vegas and two other Las Vegas-area locals markets as the top three slot payout markets in the country, a distinction Station Casinos marketing mavens wasted little time in publicizing.

"Loosest Slots in America," crowed the Texas Station on its marquee and in newspaper ads, noting that the gambling magazine had tabbed North Las Vegas as the country's top-paying slot market for the fifth year in a row.

Although the control board doesn't publicly define which casinos are in the different geographic markets, industry observers believe the biggest three casinos in the North Las Vegas market are all Station Casinos properties, Texas Station, Santa Fe Station and Fiesta Rancho.

Station Casinos Chief Operating Officer Steve Cavallaro said competitive pressures drive the market's generous payouts.

Before Station Casinos bought the Santa Fe and the Fiesta, those properties emphasized high-payout video poker machines, and Texas Station had to have good payouts to compete.

Now that Station Casinos controls the top three properties in the market, Cavallaro said payouts will remain high.

"We're working hard to compete," Cavallaro said. "We still compete with the Suncoast and Arizona Charlie's."

Other properties in the North Las Vegas market presumably include Jerry's Nugget, Poker Palace and the Speedway.

The state's second and third best slot payout markets are the "balance of Clark County" and the Boulder Strip markets, the same two markets tabbed by Casino Player as the country's second and third best.

Observers believe the balance of Clark County market includes the Suncoast, Rampart and Arizona Charlie's as well as properties in Primm and Jean, while the Boulder Strip market probably includes Sam's Town, Boulder Station, Sunset Station, Castaways and the Fiesta Henderson.

The market-by-market numbers compared by Casino Player are the most specific numbers reported by the control board. Unlike many other top U.S. jurisdictions, Nevada doesn't release property-by- property numbers.

SLOT HOLD PERCENTAGES

North Balance of Boulder Downtown Las Vegas

Las Vegas Clark County Strip Las Vegas Strip

Nickel (5c) 6.90% 6.34% 6.82% 7.94% 8.93%

Quarter (25c) 3.25% 4.00% 3.67% 5.08% 7.27%

Dollar ($1) 2.60% 3.78% 3.60% 4.55% 5.19%

Total 4.32% 4.53% 4.57% 5.50% 6.11%

*Hold percentages reflect the portion of every dollar wagered that casinos won.

Results based on slot play during the 12-month period between May 1,2001 and April 30. Markets are defined by the Nevada Gaming Control Board. The control board does not identify which casinos are in which markets.

Souce: Nevada Gaming Control Board.

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