CARSON CITY, Nev. Nevada’s Economic Forum, the five-member panel state law tasks with forecasting how much money the state will have to spend, told lawmakers in December 2024 to expect the state’s gaming percentage fee tax to bring in $980,813,000 in the fiscal year that ended this past June, a projected gain of 1.1% over the prior year.
The fiscal year has since closed, and Nevada’s actual gaming tax collections came in at $1,036,360,553, according to the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s own May 2026 revenue report. That is $55.5 million above the forum’s forecast, a gap calculated for this article, and a year over year increase of 5.07%, more than four times the growth rate the state’s own forecasters had built into the budget.
The forum never revised that gaming number. When it met again in May 2025 for its mid-cycle check on the same two-year budget window, it left the gaming forecast exactly as it had set it the previous December, even as its own consulting economist flagged a very different risk.
The gap between what Nevada expected and what it actually collected sat unresolved through the entire fiscal year, and it surfaces now just as the same forum prepares to set the state’s next set of numbers, weeks after Las Vegas’s top tourism official told the panel to brace for headwinds.
What the Forum Predicted, and What Nevada Actually Collected
The Economic Forum’s forecasting mandate covers Nevada’s two largest general fund revenue sources: the gaming percentage fee tax, which the forum’s own December 2024 report put at roughly 16% of general fund revenue, and the state’s 2% sales and use tax, which it put at about 31%.
Both forecasts, covering the two-year budget cycle that runs through June 2027, were adopted at the forum’s Dec. 2, 2024 meeting and are what Gov. Joe Lombardo’s administration used to build the current state budget.
| Revenue source | Dec. 2024 forecast for FY2026 | Actual FY2026 collections | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gaming percentage fee tax | $980,813,000 | $1,036,360,553 | +$55.5 million (+5.66%) |
| State 2% sales and use tax | $1,942,884,000 | $1,938,598,105 | -$4.3 million (-0.22%) |
The sales tax landed almost exactly where the forum said it would, a calculation performed for this article using the Nevada Department of Taxation’s own fiscal year 2026 statistical report.
Gaming did not. The state’s gambling tax base itself grew too: statewide gaming win for the fiscal year, the total amount casinos kept before any tax was applied, reached $16.05 billion, up 2.59% from the prior fiscal year’s $15.64 billion, according to the gaming board’s own June 2026 monthly report.
Why the Forum Left Gaming Alone in May
Halfway through the two-year window, the forum had a chance to correct course and didn’t take it. At its May 1, 2025 meeting, the panel trimmed its combined two-year sales tax outlook by $100 million, down to $3.68 billion, after its consulting firm, Moody’s Analytics, concluded that whatever growth was left in sales tax collections would come from consumers paying higher prices, not buying more.
On gaming, the forum’s own report shows it chose not to move the number at all, even though Moody’s had separately warned the forum that gaming revenue could fall as much as 8% in the year ahead, a warning Nevada Current reported at the time.
The forum’s unchanged forecast turned out closer to what actually happened than Moody’s own warning did, but neither figure anticipated gaming tax collections running more than 5% ahead of the number in the budget.
Nevada’s state budget was built on a forecast of 1.1% gaming tax growth. The tax actually grew 5.07%, and the state’s own economic consultant had warned the forum gaming could fall 8%, not rise. Neither number in front of the forum in May 2025 was close to what actually happened a year later.
The Same Panel Is About to Do It Again
The forum’s track record on the fiscal year that just closed matters because it is about to repeat the exercise for the next one. Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority CEO Steve Hill told the forum on Sept. 11 that a widening gap between wealthy and working class travelers is dragging on the city’s tourism economy, warning of a K-shaped split in which, in his words reported by Nevada Current, “the upper end of our market is going well” while lower income visitors are “continuing to live paycheck to paycheck.” That same report noted the forum is scheduled to meet again Oct. 15, with a vote on new revenue forecasts set for Nov. 16, 2026.
Hill’s warning lands on a forum whose most recent full-year test came out the opposite way: gaming actually outperformed a forecast that assumed only modest growth, while broader consumer spending, measured by sales tax, landed almost exactly on target despite the same economic strain Hill described.
Whether the forum treats his warning the way it treated Moody’s gaming warning in May 2025, on the record but ultimately unreflected in the number it adopts, will not be clear until the Nov. 16 vote.
What the Nov. 16 Vote Will Set
- Gaming percentage fee tax: Beat the forum’s own forecast by $55.5 million in the year that just closed, a gap this article calculated by comparing the forum’s December 2024 number to the gaming board’s own May 2026 revenue report.
- State sales and use tax: Landed $4.3 million, about two tenths of one percent, below the forum’s December 2024 forecast, per the state Department of Taxation’s own fiscal year 2026 report.
- Combined share of the general fund: The forum’s own December 2024 report puts gaming tax at roughly 16% of general fund revenue and sales tax at about 31%, meaning the two taxes the forum forecasts most carefully fund close to half the state’s discretionary budget.
- What’s scheduled next: The forum meets Oct. 15, 2026, with a vote on new two-year revenue forecasts set for Nov. 16, 2026, according to Nevada Current’s Sept. 11 report on Hill’s testimony.
The Economic Forum’s Dec. 2, 2024 gaming percentage fee tax and sales tax forecasts for fiscal year 2026, along with each tax’s share of general fund revenue, are drawn directly from the forum’s own final report, published on the Nevada Legislature’s fiscal division website. Actual fiscal year 2026 gaming percentage fee tax collections ($1,036,360,553) and the prior year comparison ($986,388,785) are drawn directly from the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s May 2026 monthly revenue report, which labels the figure fiscal year to date through June 23, 2026, and marks it subject to revision; it does not include $7.5 million in transferable tax credits taken during the fiscal year, per the same report. Statewide gaming win for fiscal year 2026 ($16.05 billion, up 2.59%) is drawn directly from the gaming board’s June 2026 monthly revenue report. Actual fiscal year 2026 and fiscal year 2025 state 2% sales and use tax collections are drawn directly from the Nevada Department of Taxation’s own fiscal year 2026 and fiscal year 2025 statistical reports. The May 1, 2025 Economic Forum meeting’s $100 million two-year sales tax reduction, Moody’s Analytics’ 8% gaming decline warning, and the characterization of consumer price growth versus sales volume are drawn directly from Nevada Current’s May 2, 2025 report on that meeting. Steve Hill’s Sept. 11, 2026 testimony to the forum, including the direct quotes used here and the Oct. 15 and Nov. 16, 2026 forum meeting dates, are drawn directly from Nevada Current’s Sept. 11, 2026 report, the same primary source used in Two Nevadas’ Sept. 11, 2026 article fact checking Hill’s visitor count claims; this article does not repeat that fact check and instead examines a separate question, how the forum’s own revenue forecasts for the fiscal year that just closed compared to what the state actually collected. The $55.5 million and 5.66% gaming forecast gap, the 5.07% and 2.59% year over year growth calculations, the $4.3 million and 0.22% sales tax gap, and the 4.6 times comparison between forecast and actual gaming tax growth rates are all original to this article and were verified with Python before publication; none appear in any of the underlying reports. A search for existing reporting connecting the Economic Forum’s fiscal year 2026 forecasts to actual collections, in the context of Hill’s September 2026 testimony or otherwise, did not turn up any prior article making this comparison as of publication.
