Executives of casino resorts on the Las Vegas Strip are expressing optimism concerning the market’s outlook for 2022 as the pandemic continues to lessen its hold. In interviews with The Street, some of the top executives pointed to the Nevada governor’s lifting of the mask mandate in time for this year’s Super Bowl as a possible turning point for a region that has been harder hit than most by the Covid-19 crisis.
The state’s 179 sportsbooks took $179.8 million in wagers in Super Bowl LVI, easily topping last year’s handle of $136.1 million and topping the previous record of $158.6 million set in 2018 in Philadelphia’s 41-33 upset win over New England, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
“This year there was a normal Super Bowl party environment with Cobid-19 restrictions, including mask requirements, being lifted,” Nevada Gaming Control Board Senior Economic Analyst Michael Lawton told the Review-Journal, “in addition to the continued acceptance of mobile sports wagering by customers, which allows the books to offer a wider variety of betting options with proposition bets and increased in-play wagering.”
“For 2021, average hotel occupancy increased from January (31.6 percent) to October, the best month of the year (81.6 percent),” Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and NGCB reported, according to the Review-Journal. “Weekends were at 48.3 percent in January (midweek 22.5 percent) and 90.4 percent in October, with the best midweek occupancy also occurring that month (77.5 percent).”
Caesars CEO Tom Reeg noted positive signs for the year ahead in his company’s fourth-quarter earnings call, and in an interview with the News Journal, MGM Resorts CEO Bill Hornbuckle agreed.
“Cancellations are declining, and group lead volumes are normalizing,” Hornbuckle said. “Forward hotel book has been stable over the past few weeks and are once again starting to outpace 2019 levels. I expect that given positive Covid trends in Nevada, we will start to see meaningful loosening of Covid restrictions in the very, very near future, consistent with what we have seen in other states. Furthermore, our weekends have remained very strong.”
