For the second straight month, a handful of Strip casinos dealing high-end baccarat games boosted Nevada’s gaming market and provided a counter to myriad headlines declaring Las Vegas dead.

The Strip recorded its second consecutive monthly gaming revenue increase during August, reporting $679.4 million for the month, the Gaming Control Board said Friday. The 5.5 percent increase nearly matched July’s 5.6 percent jump, which was also attributed to baccarat results.

Strip baccarat revenue grew 51.1 percent in August to $114.1 million. While wagering on the game was down more than 14 percent, casinos held 18.5 percent of all bets, compared to 10.5 percent last August.

“Baccarat obviously buoyed [the] August headline numbers, showing the ongoing resilience of Las Vegas Strip gaming,” wrote J.P. Morgan Securities gaming analyst Daniel Politzer.

On the Strip, slot machine revenue was $100,000 less than a year ago, while table game revenue minus baccarat declined 1.4 percent. 

Through August, Strip gaming revenue is up 1 percent compared to the same eight months of 2024.

Deutsche Bank gaming analyst Steven Pizzella told investors in a research note that Strip results were exceeding expectations, “although the underlying metrics are still painting somewhat of a mixed picture.”

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority said visitation in August declined 6.7 percent to 3.17 million tourists during the month. But the dip was an improvement compared to the double-digit declines in tourism volume seen in June and July. For the first eight months of 2025, Las Vegas visitation is down 7.8 percent compared to 2024. 

Read more: Headlines say Vegas is dead. What’s actually going on is more complicated.

Every metric used by the LVCVA was down in August. The average daily room rate on the Strip was $172.81, down 7.1 percent, while a hotel room in downtown Las Vegas averaged $90.15 a night, a decline of 9 percent. Convention attendance was down 8 percent.

Revenue per available room on the Strip, which gauges what visitors spend on both gaming and non-gaming attractions, was down 11 percent from a year ago.

The visitation results don’t reflect the authority’s recent ‘Fabulous’ advertising campaign, which began after Labor Day weekend.

Also, August marked the seventh consecutive month of declining passenger volume at Harry Reid International Airport.

Statewide, August turned out to be a strong revenue month for casinos throughout Nevada. Only two reporting markets — the unincorporated areas of Clark County and North Lake Tahoe — showed declines. Downtown Las Vegas had an 8.4 percent gaming revenue increase, Laughlin was up almost 11 percent and Reno was up 4.9 percent.

Statewide, gaming revenue increased 5.5 percent to $1.22 billion, which was the second-lowest single-month total this year, trailing $1.21 billion in February.

In a research note published Friday morning ahead of the announcement, CBRE Equity Research analyst John DeCree suggested that Las Vegas visitation could face challenges into 2026.

He wrote the Strip’s normal “slow summer” has been “exacerbated by negative geopolitical sentiment from Canada and Mexico, immigration control concerns from Southern California, and reduced flight capacity from Spirit Airlines.”

Spirit, which had been Reid Airport's second busiest passenger carrier behind Southwest Airlines, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the second time this year on Aug. 29. Spirit saw a 46.3 percent drop in passenger volume during the month and is down 32 percent through August.

Reid Airport's passenger volume of more than 4.5 million passengers was a 6 percent drop compared to a year ago. Through eight months, the airport has seen a 4.5 percent overall decline in passenger totals.

Southwest reported a 4.2 percent increase in passengers during August and is up 1 percent for the year.

International travel was down 3.7 percent in August and is off 2 percent from a year ago, due primarily to a continued freefall in passenger volume from the three Canadian-based airlines with direct service to Las Vegas. 

Through eight months, WestJet passenger traffic is down 34 percent compared to 2024. Air Canada is off 32 percent and Flair, which didn’t have any flights to and from Reid in August, is down 62.5 percent for the year.

Updated at 11:17 a.m. on 9/26/2025 to include Las Vegas tourism results for August.