Why do it?
The monthly revenue reports by the Nevada Gaming Commission are among the few reliable sources of data for slot players (and gamblers in general). Here’s how to read them.
What's important?
The part of the monthly revenue report we find useful is the Casino Win Percentage. Here’s why…
The Casino Win Percentage shows how much the casinos within a particular geographic area won from players. Slots, table games, sports betting are all covered in the report. For the EXACT definition, see the section below.
Slots bring in more than double what table games do in Nevada. About $940 million every month.
Casino slot win percentages are reported by denomination, although multi-denomation games (like Dragon Link and many modern slots) are lumped together into one category.
Demystifying Nevada Gaming Definitions
Like most government reports, the verbiage used can be opaque. Here’s exactly what the report says with our translations.
The “Win Percent” for slots devices provides a ratio which represents the report win amount divided by the total dollar amount played by patrons.
Translation: the percentage the casino kept of ever $100 gambled.
The minimum number of location in any revenue range or area is four.
Translation: This means that if there are only two casinos that fall in a revenue range, their data isn’t reported or is lumped into “rest of county”.
Additionally, if there are fewer than three locations reporting revenue for a specific gaming unit, the information for that gaming unit will be included in the other revenue categories.
Translation: If there are only two casinos with $1,000 denomination slot machines, they are listed under “Other” (see the report screenshot below).
A Note About RTP
Return to Player (“RTP”) is often used to characterize the overall return a slot machine is programmed to give back to players in the form of wins. Here’s the bad news. The actual RTP of a slot is ONLY known to the slot manager at a casino.
For example, if there are three Phoenix Link slots side-by-side, they may have an RTP of 90%, 92%, and 75%, but a slot player will NEVER know this. Never.
Just Like Body Snatchers
Some YouTube slot channels go on about how difficult it is to change the RTP of a slot. But we’ve watched a casino swap out an entire carousel of slots (six machines) with IDENTICAL slots in less than a day. It’s that easy and it happens that fast.
The smartest bit of advice was from Jackpot Famous, who tells people to write down a slot’s inventory number if they like it.
Here’s a screenshot of the revenue report for July 2025. As you can see, each slot denomination has its own set of data, from 1¢ to $100. Multi-denomination slots which now dominate casinos floors are lumped together.
Okay, let's look at a report...
Penny slots are the best...for casinos
As you can see, the report is broken down by
- Annual revenue
- Geographic area
- Slot denominations
There are 26 casinos making $72M annually on the Vegas Strip. Multi-denomination slots are lumped together into one category comprising 60% of all slots, so in the near future the denomination categories will likely become meaningless.
“Other” is where $1,000+ denomination slots are listed. 475 machines have a coin-in of $6.9 million ($15K a month per slot), about the same as all 25¢ and $5 slots combined. The report doesn’t explain why the win % is missing.
As you can see above, penny slots have the WORST odds in a casino. This is why we recommend against playing them as well as 25¢ slots. If the “Win Percent” of total revenue for a slot denomination the return to player is 88.50% collectively. The minimum RTP for a slot machine in Nevada is 75%.
Compare this to $5 slots, where the RTP is 96.14%, a full 8% higher than 1¢ slots. The higher the RTP, the better it is for the player. Does this guarantee you will win if you play a $5 slot. No, but the odds are 8% in your favor compared to penny slots.
It’s interesting to track this over time. Each of the Nevada Gaming Commission reports includes data for the past 3 months as well as the preceding 12 months. Reports are posted a month or so after the close of the month (e.g., the Aug. report will show up around Sep. 30th).
Does knowing this make any difference?
We think it does.
When we decided go leave the Vegas Strip for one of the casinos in an areas called the “Boulder Strip” (the casinos along State Route 582) in eastern Las Vegas, the number and amount of our wins increased.
The Vegas Strip casino win percentage for slots overall is 8.01% (July 2025, casinos with $72M or more in revenue). On the Boulder Strip, it’s 6.63%. For us, that 2% translated into $3K in wins with the same $2K bankroll we use on the Strip.
While it’s true that this could be explained by a streak of good luck, it’s a streak that continued for three separate visits in three different months on 30 different slots. You be the judge.