Nevada is on a 14-month record revenue streak thanks to its biggest moneymaker: one-armed bandits. But having too many machines has become a bad bet for gaming companies. Now the Goldilocks principle is helping bring in even more gold.
The Spin Crowd: Slots rang up more than two thirds of Nevada’s $13.4 billion in gaming revenue last year—but the casinos are winning more with fewer of them.n April, Steve, a 35-year-old filmmaker from Los Angeles, was at the Venetian in Las Vegas playing a Wheel of Fortune slot machine and feeling like a million bucks. He was taking $7 spins and after an hour of sinking $500 into the machine, Steve got a gold spin bonus and won $700.
“Slot win is on this torrid pace,” says Michael Lawton, a senior research analyst for the Nevada Gaming Control Board. One-armed bandits generated $9.2 billion last year across the Silver State—another record for Nevada and a 16.4% increase over $7.9 billion slots reaped in 2019. Between 2010 and 2019, slots accounted for 63.3% of total state win.
All You Need Is Luck: Slots are now designed to be far more addictive than when the Beatles took one for a spin in 1964. And the Beatles could afford to lose a few pounds.While slots have some of the best odds in a casino, sharp gamblers understand that the pay rate for them means very little.
In addition to lower payouts, it’s logical to think that if a casino wants to make more money, it should add more machines. But the opposite has proven to be true. The counterintuitive logic is all about odds. “The less amount of slot machines a casino has on a floor, the higher the net-win percentage goes up,” explains Nick Antenucci, a lawyer and lobbyist at Davidoff Hutcher & Citron who has worked in New York’s gaming industry for years.
The Goldilocks principle has also helped the state’s four Vegas-style casinos rebound from the pandemic. According to data from the, slot machines in the Empire State generated $412.7 million with 5,385 units between April 2019 to March 2020. After casinos pulled about 300 machines, revenue increased 13% to $467 million between April 2021 and March 2022. The average daily win per machine also jumped 19.4% from prepandemic levels.
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