HomeIn-depthHow many slot machines are in Las Vegas?

How many slot machines are in Las Vegas?

ENTERTAINMENT05 Aug 2024
8 min. read
How many slot machines are in Las Vegas

Las Vegas fascinates with the incessant churn of footfall across the city’s gaming floors. With more than 150 casinos throughout the city, and none more popular than the properties located in the famous Las Vegas Strip, Sin City is a magnet for tourists from far and wide.

One of the biggest drivers of revenue for the city’s sprawling network of casinos has been slots in particular. Slots are the ultimate equalizer in Sin City – whether you play on a tight budget or are happy to high roll. The games are responsible for up to 70% of casino revenues.

This naturally begs the question, how many slot machines are in Las Vegas? The LVS alone is home to an estimated 35,000 to 40,000 slot machines. Take the city as a whole, and this number easily jumps to 60,000. Think even bigger, accounting for all of Nevada, and you may have 127,000 slot machines on your hands.

How many slot machines are in Las Vegas today?

60,000, but it’s not that simple. Try to pinpoint the exact number of slot machines in Las Vegas, and you might get a headache. Las Vegas may look like a city pinned in the desert, but it’s more than that – it’s a living organism that is constantly evolving and adapting.

Slot machines come and go. For example, in December 2019, the Nevada Gaming Control Board reported that there were 140,413 slot machines in the Silver State. This number has dropped to 127,000 as of June 2024.

Casinos come into and out of business, and giving you a straight answer as to how many slot machines will be in Las Vegas in 2024 will be muddled in speculation, approximations, and doubt.

A good estimate for the city’s slot machines is anything between 50,000 and 60,000, although some sources have cited 127,000 as the more accurate number. Our bean counting, however, has suggested that the latter figure is likely the population of all slot machines in the Silver State.

These numbers are based on the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s June 2024 report, which counts revenue across all administrative areas in Nevada, and further considers the amounts won, the types of games, and the number of slot machine units.

Another important distinction to keep in mind is that most people think of Las Vegas as The Strip alone. Yet, the city is home to 150 casinos more or less. Since the first casino on the Las Vegas Strip was built back in 1931, such properties have mushroomed all over the urbanized area.

Management decisions do play a role in determining the slot machine count across the city and tracking them all would be virtually impossible.

Number of slot machines in each Las Vegas casino

Going over and tracking every gaming floor in Las Vegas would require a super-human effort, one that is best left to the Nevada Gaming Control Board, which gets mandatory updates from the casinos themselves. For our part, we will offer you a quick breakdown of the biggest properties in Las Vegas by their available slot machines.

CasinoSlot #
The Orleans3,000
Sam's Town Hotel & Gambling Hall3,000
Boulder Station Hotel & Casino2,900
Santa Fe Station Hotel & Casino2,700
MGM Grand Las Vegas2,500
Bellagio2,300
South Point Hotel Casino Las Vegas2,300
Luxor2,000
Aria Resort & Casino1,940
Suncoast Hotel and Casino1,800
The Venetian Resort1,800
Wynn Las Vegas1,800
Caesars Palace1,320

You may have observed that the biggest casinos in terms of slots are not necessarily located on the Las Vegas Strip. Sam’s Town Hotel & Gambling Hall, The Orleans, and other properties on this list are just a short drive from the LVS. The fact that there are massive and super-popular casinos outside the Strip is also what gives the city its vibrancy and impressive regenerative qualities.

Slot machines are dead in Las Vegas, long live slot machines!

One very interesting phenomenon that has been observed regarding slot machines in Las Vegas is that their number peaked in the early 2000s. According to Statista, there were 213,800 slots in the Silver State at the turn of the century, a number that our independent research was not fully able to verify, because the Nevada Gaming Control Board is missing data for any period before 2004, at least without further inquiry.

YearSlot # (LVS)Slot # (Nevada)
200457,111181,929
200555,252177,236
200652,872176,387
200750,784176,383
200849,968173,721
200950,247171,831
201051,076169,827
201149,947166,137
201247,584162,201
201345,909158,273
201445,909154,841
201544,370152,288
201641,526147,667
201739,958144,741
201837,839141,142
201938,454140,414
202039,008140,515
202130,745113,574
202233,789122,297
202334,974123,749
202435,644127,061

*Bear in mind that the number of slot units under Nevada also includes the slot units listed under the Las Vegas Strip (LVS). We have not included slot units from Clark County Downtown Las Vegas Area or Clark County North Las Vegas Area that would normally add to the number of Las Vegas slots. We have chosen this approach to allow readers to monitor the decline in slot numbers in the Strip and Nevada as a whole as we consider these to be the most prominent areas that you would be interested in. If you prefer, you may visit each report since 2004 here, and find out how many slots were available in the other areas of Las Vegas, and the state.

However, a quick snippet of 2004 shows that the regulator estimated 181,929 slot machines were available in Nevada compared to around 206,000 according to Statista (Statista only had the number for 2005 listed, so we are approximating).

In other words, although Statista tends to inflate the numbers a little – at least when comparing to the Nevada Gaming Control Board which we hold to be the more accurate and reliable source – the numbers are generally in the ballpark.

The trend though has been mostly downward until 2020. Following the pandemic slot machine numbers have begun to inch up again across Las Vegas and Nevada, although at a slow but steady pace. There was a more notable increase from 2023 to 2024 in the number of slot machine units, and it all points to an increase, as Las Vegas remains as popular as ever.

Interestingly, however, slots have continued to contribute increasing amounts to casino revenues and win amounts. In January 2004, there were 181,929 slot machines in Nevada, but they contributed $531,700,000 in win amount compared to the 127,061 that contributed $823,132,000 in win amount in June 2024.

Conclusion: So, how many slots are in Vegas?

Now, because nobody took the effort to take a good stock of the slot count in Las Vegas, Nevada, and because these numbers were a little fiddly to extract, most sources would tell you that there are 200,000 slots or so in the state. This is inaccurate as far as our research has found out.

The most accurate numbers come from the Nevada Gaming Control Board, which has been painstakingly tracking the exact number of slot machines across Nevada, which is around 127,000 as of today. Over the past 20 years, though, the number of slot machines has been in a steady decline – dropping to almost half of what it was in 2004 for the Las Vegas Strip and Las Vegas in general.

Curiously, though, this has not stopped the amount spent at slot machines from contributing to casino revenues, which have been growing steadily over the past 20 years. In other words - the number of slot units may have dropped, but they are driving more revenue to casinos than ever.

Slot Machines in Vegas FAQs

How many slot machines will be in Las Vegas in 2024?

60,000. Based on the latest data available from the Nevada Gaming Control Board, the Las Vegas region, which encompasses the Strip, Downtown and North Las Vegas, there are close to 60,000 units of slot machines.

How many slot machines are in Las Vegas today?

60,000. Las Vegas’s number of slots is constantly changing, but based on data from 2024, the number of slots across the city is roughly 60,000.

What is the number of slot machines in each Las Vegas casino?

Anything between 50, 100 and 3,000. Each casino will host a different number of online slots that is to be determined by the property.

How many slot machines are in Nevada?

127,000. Based on the latest information available from the gambling regulator, there are 127,000 slot machine units across Nevada. This number is a significant drop from the 181,929 slot machines available in the Silver State in 2004.

Are slot machines in Las Vegas increasing?

No, the number of available slot machines in Las Vegas has mostly been contracting since the 2000s, but the past several years, have seen a slight increase in the number of units available.


Image credit: Unsplash.com

05 Aug 2024
8 min. read
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