According to the latest report published by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, which is for the 2013 calendar year, the average visitor to Las Vegas stayed for an average of 4.3 days/3.3 nights and had a trip gambling budget of $529.57, as you recalled seeing, so that's $123.09 per day, approximately.
Gaming budgets have fluctuated in recent years, with a mean figure of $481.57 in 2009, which dropped to $447.63 by 2011, but has been on the rise again for the past couple of years. As for the duration of stay for the average visitor, as surveyed by the LVCVA, aside from a small upward tick that bucked the trend in 2011, it's been a steady decline from 4.6 nights/3.6 days back in 2009.
A bigger change, however, is in the proportion of visitors who say they gambled at all during their trip, which fell from 83% in 2009 down to 71% last year. This tallies with trends reported by hotel-casinos, which no longer derive their primary source of revenue from the machines and tables, but have seen a diversification in their economies and now derive significant income from nightlife, dining, and retail (the latter being up from $101.47 in 2009 to $140.90 last year, for example, hence the seemingly endless proliferation of shopping malls on the Strip).
When it comes to the average reader of this website, however, these "official" gambling budgets have long proven not to reflect your habits. We haven't run a poll specifically on this topic since January, 2008, but when when we asked you back then, more than 50% of respondents budgeted in excess of $500 for gambling purposes per visit, with 27% -- the top response -- reporting that they gambled an average of $1,000-$2,000 per trip.
We hadn't realized it had been so long since we last ran a survey on this topic, so perhaps your question can serve as a timely reminder for us to see how your habits may have changed over the intervening years.
