Did legalized sports betting hurt Las Vegas’s tourism?

Abstract The Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Murphy v. NCAA struck down the 1992 law restricting legal sports betting to Nevada. Many states subsequently moved to legalize sports betting, with 38 plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico doing so by mid-2025. In this paper, we use multiple measures and empirical approaches to analyze the effect of legal sports betting on Las Vegas’s tourism. We use time series analysis of tourist counts from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, airplane passenger arrivals at Harry Reid International Airport, and Las Vegas hotel occupancy data. We also use a synthetic control analysis using a long panel of hotel occupancy data spanning 25 large hotel markets in the U.S. In all cases, we find no evidence that legalized sports betting has harmed Las Vegas tourism.