The more startling data is that October 2009 gaming revenue is off 46% from the $784.5 million gamblers lost in October 2007. That is, until you see that October 2007 was the best month in terms of Strip gaming revenue ever.

The good news, for the sake of comparisons anyway, is that there was a big drop off from October 2007 to November 2007. As a result, November 2009 need to come in only 3% better than October 2009 to show improvement over November 2008. If so, it would be the first year-over-year increase of 2009. November results will be released this time next month.

The bad news is that October 2009's double-digit decline from 2008 occurred despite visitor volumes to the region increasing for the second month in a row, up 3.7% to 3.15 million in October 2009 following a 4.3% increase in September 2009--the only two months this year to post a YoY increase. Gaming revenue in September 2009 was off just 3.6% from the same year-earlier period, by far the smallest year-over-year decline year-to-date.