The state of Nevada legalized gambling back in 1931 under Assembly Bill 98 when the legislature discovered that the gambling industry would be profitable for its state’s success. Now that’s why Las Vegas, better known as Sin City, has many casinos and has become the gambling capital worldwide. Even with the 175 casinos and 95 casino hotels, Las Vegas casinos are not performing so well as of now.
Unfortunately, Las Vegas casinos are in a bearish market on the downhill in value since some subpar success back in August. However, one analyst claims that these stocks will eventually be on the rise again after repairing themselves from a couple of unexpected events.
Las Vegas Casino Performance To Be Ahead This Year
Analyst Chad Beynon stated that Las Vegas casinos are expected to end 5% ahead in gross gaming revenue (GGR) compared to last year’s performance. If gambling revenue made a record of $8.3 billion in 2022, then the amount of revenue expected for 2023 would be $8,715,000,000 or higher after considering Beynon’s projected 5% increase.
Because more conventions and sports events occur over a couple of years’ span, this is a good indication that gross gaming revenue and even non-gaming earnings throughout the industry will be successful as the Las Vegas casino gaming industry heals from cyberattacks that happened to their two most prominent casinos back in September.
Caesar’s and MGM Hacking in September
Caesar Entertainment and MGM were the two prominent casinos that experienced cyberattacks. These events could be another reason for the decline in the value of the Las Vegas casino stocks over the past couple of months.
Caesars Entertainment experienced a cyberattack with a hacker that got into Caesars Rewards and caused other data breaches throughout the company’s technological databases. There are more than 65 million members of their rewards program, which makes Caesars Entertainment the number one casino gaming company with the most loyalty program members. Hence, the company paid the ransom to the hacker known as “Scattered Spider”, which thankfully their cyber insurance reimbursed them for the financial loss.
MGM did the complete opposite. Rather than paying the ransom to their hacker, they took matters into their own hands. The cyberattack unfortunately cost the company about $100 million. Over the 10 days the cyberattack ensued, MGM had to stop many of its services to reduce the information the hacker illegally attempted to collect.
An Outlook On the Las Vegas Casino Gaming Industry
MGM’s most popular casinos are in the Mandalay Bay and Bellagio within the popular Las Vegas strip. Caesars Entertainment’s casinos in Las Vegas along with these two prominent MGM casinos make up 60% of Las Vegas’s casino gross gaming revenue throughout the local industry.
Analyzing the $8.3 billion in revenue from 2022, this was a 25% jump from how the Las Vegas casino industry performed back during the early onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Sports betting and online Casino are on the rise just as much as the Las Vegas in-person casino revenue has done.
Conclusion
The gambling capital worldwide had some hiccups with cyberattacks on its most prominent casinos, but it has not stopped its success in possibly gaining 5% above revenue made in 2022. The increase in online sports betting and a more popular mobile gaming experience is happening at the same time as Las Vegas in-person casino endeavors have also risen in popularity again since 2020.
Even while some casino players still like playing it safe, Sin City tourists and frequent casino goers amongst residents are usually willing to be risky for a possible higher reward.