Not that we’ve been able to track down, at least not specifically.
In June 1999, the National Gambling Impact Study Commission published its much-awaited final report, the result of a two-year study into the social and economic implications of gambling in the United States. We thought that might be the source of the original statistic you recall, but we could find no such figure in that eight-chapter tome.
And we also pretty much drew a blank on more recent equivalent figures. Since 2002, Harrah's has published its annual "Profile of the American Casino Gambler," which contains all kinds of comparative socio-economic data about America's gambling and non-gambling adults. The 2003 survey contained a specially-commissioned pull-out report called "A Night in the Life of a Casino Gambler," which featured the results of questions covering everything from the biggest jackpot the respondent had ever won to their favorite roulette bet to what they considered the most important attribute of a casino cocktail waitress -- but not how much they gambled.
The latest (2004) survey reveals that more than a quarter of Americans age 21 and older -- 26 percent or 53.4 million -- gambled at a casino in 2003 and that on average, gamblers visited a casino about once every two months -- 5.8 trips per year. But again, no figures for how much they wagered when they got there. But we did dig up a couple of statistics that might help satisfy your curiosity.
Before beginning, it makes sense to assume that if your $35 figure was accurate a few years ago, that amount will have gone up in accordance with increased average-wager amounts. However, the increase wouldn't be dramatic, so we'll stick with trying to support your $35 number.
According to the latest survey published by the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority, the average amount budgeted for gambling per visitor per trip was approximately $545 in 2004, the latest year for which figures are currently available (an increase of about $55 over 2003). According to the same survey, the average length of stay was 3.6 nights/4.6 days, so that works out at a budget of around $118.50 per day. This is a budgeted amount to play, not to lose -- so your $35 average loss figure remains plausible within this framework.
Approaching the problem from another angle, we looked up the Nevada State Gaming Control Board’s annual Gaming Abstract publication for the 2005 Fiscal Year, which is a 241-page monster crammed with every conceivable statistic you could wish for. Except the one you want. However, the report does include a "Per Room Per Day Analysis" for Clark County, covering all properties with gaming revenue over $1 million, of which there were 162 in 2005. This report informed us that the average pit revenue per room per day was $72.09, while the same figure for slots was $157.24. The problem with these figures, of course, is that they don’t reflect how many people were occupying the rooms at any time and so don’t pretend to represent the gaming revenue won by the casinos per guest, only per room.
In the end, it's a question of how much a casino expects to hold from the total amount bet. Just-released figures pertaining to the 2005 Nevada-casino win indicate that casinos held 7.2% of the total wagered. This means that the average player would have to bet through $486 in a session (remember, this amount of action can be generated by a starting stake of far less than that) to make something in the area of a $35-per-player-loss assumption viable, a scenario that's plausible.
If anyone has any other insightful and accurate statistics that shed some more light on this issue, please let us know.
