The latest gaming and tourism data for Nevada shows the state’s trends of declining visitation and increasing revenue continued in November despite that month’s return of the third annual Las Vegas Formula One Grand Prix.
According to the Nevada Gaming Control Board, the state posted gross gaming revenue of $1.34 billion for November, up more than 2% year-over-year. Surprisingly, this was achieved despite a flat month for both the Strip, which posted GGR of $784.3 million (-0.5%), and the locals market, which came in at $154 million. Other ancillary markets like downtown Las Vegas (+10%), Boulder (+20%) and Laughlin (+11.6%) were the ones buoying southern Nevada in November.
Through the first five months of the fiscal year, both the state and the Strip are up approximately 3% from fiscal year 2025, in spite of a tourism lag that continues to plague the region.
Speaking of tourism, the latest figures from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority showed that November visitation dropped 5% YoY to 3.14 million. Every metric tracked by the LVCVA was negative for the month, which has been a stubbornly frequent result since late 2024.
Both of those results were perhaps overshadowed by Las Vegas’ troubling air traffic data. Harry Reid International Airport reported 4.3 million passengers in November, down 9.6% YoY as the 10th consecutive monthly decrease of more than 1%. Total traffic is down about 5.5% year-to-date. The bankruptcy of budget carrier Spirit Airlines, whose November traffic fell 70% YoY, continues to have meaningful impact.
Despite the globally focused F1 event before the Thanksgiving holiday, international traffic plummeted 21%. However, officials noted that international data counts only nonstop arrivals, not charters or connecting flights.
November race was last big beacon of hope for 2025
Hopes of an F1-inspired performance boost to finish the year were perhaps the last of such hopes for stakeholders in 2025. Most of the year was marred by the unrelenting visitation drop and vacillating revenue, but a busy sports and event calendar in the fourth quarter was the last sliver of optimism for the year.
Yet even the F1 Grand Prix, which generated economic impact of at least $1 billion in the first two iterations, was not enough to reverse the city’s revenue and visitation trends. LVCVA CEO Steve Hill told Nevada Newsmakers in December that the 2025 event was “the best race we’ve had”, but with limits on what can be attained from it.
“It fills about half the [city’s 150,000 hotel] rooms,” he told the outlet. “It is a great event around the circuit. But you need alternative programming. You need everything that Las Vegas has to offer – in addition to Formula One – for Las Vegas to be Las Vegas.”
Ironically, 2025 was still very good performance-wise from a historical standpoint – it just represented the end of the seemingly unending run of record years post-Covid. Optimism is already returning for key events in 2026, like the Consumer Electronics Show this week and the CONEXPO-CON/AGG tradeshow in March.
Baccarat flat, sports betting up
Looking closer at the Strip’s performance, the flatness of total revenue was dictated largely by a relatively calm month of baccarat. The Strip casinos won $137 million on the game in November, a 5.7% YoY decrease for a metric that commonly sees high double-digit swings from month to month.
Baccarat is the game of choice for many of the biggest international high-rollers, but the influx of F1 arrivals did not move the needle in a meaningful way. The Strip is now flat on baccarat for the previous three months and +5% over the last 12.
With NFL and college football seasons in full swing, Nevada sportsbooks saw statewide GGR jump 8% to $72.8 million. Over half of that ($48.3 million) came from football betting specifically, a 19% increase over last year. For the Strip, revenue from football betting was $22 million, also a 19% increase.
Jess Marquez
Jess has covered the global gaming industry since 2022. A native of Reno, Nevada, he’d like to note that it’s Ne-va-da, not Ne-VAH-da.
The return of the Formula One event was not enough to alter Las Vegas’ revenue and tourism trends.