Casino winnings in October should be up 5% over 2024. That was the prediction of J.P. Morgan analyst Daniel Politzer in a November 5 investor note.
Morgan tracked casino foot traffic, “a helpful tool in forecasting monthly regional GGR trends.” Visitation rose five percent last month, leading Politzer to conclude that revenues would ascend similarly.
October enjoyed one extra weekend day this year, meaning that an apples-to-apples comparison with October 2024 would see a 3% improvement. That would be consistent with 2025 trends and a marked improvement on September’s 1.5% boost. Politzer noted that Labor Day coming at the very beginning of September constituted a drag on that month.
Although Morgan’s model didn’t count Sunday as weekend days for regional casinos, it showed Friday and Saturday performing 1.8 times better than weekdays (Sunday through Thursday). Politzer’s team crunched five years of foot-traffic data for 17 regional casinos and found that “the changes in this sample set to be highly correlated with month-to-month variations in U.S. regional GGR.
“The goal of our 17-property sample is to be indicative of the overall health of the U.S. regional gaming market,” Politzer continued. “Thus, we didn’t include properties in destination markets that often experience more pronounced seasonality.” This excluded Atlantic City and New Orleans, among others.
Also out of bounds were luxury-oriented casinos at which high-end spending could skew the results. The reason for this was that large play tended to be highly volatile (as has been the case in Las Vegas with baccarat).
