Nevada casinos roared to an all-time record gaming win of $12.6 billion in 2006, fueled by free-spending gamblers frequenting the Strip's glitzy gambling halls.

The revenues, reported Friday by the Gaming Control Board, marked an overall increase of 8.3 percent compared with the $11.6 billion won by casinos in 2005.

A breakdown of the win shows that the Strip accounted for $6.69 billion of the total. That's a record, but not enough to fend off Macau, which reported last month that it topped the Strip for the first time in 2006 with gambling revenue of $6.95 billion.

Gaming Control Board senior research analyst Frank Streshley said the Strip accounted for 53 percent of the state's total gaming win. In 1990, he said Strip casinos accounted for 47.3 percent of the state's overall gaming win.

Statewide, gamblers in 2006 wagered $138 billion on slot machines, 3.8 percent more than in 2005, and $32 billion was bet on table games and in race and sports books, a 9.8 percent increase. Out of the combined $170 billion gambled, the casinos' take statewide was $8.3 billion from slot machines and $4.3 billion from tables and race and sports wagers.

In 2006, almost $7.6 billion was wagered on baccarat, a 28.3 percent increase from the previous year. That translated into a gaming win of $835.8 million for the casinos, a 25.6 percent increase from 2005.

Twenty-one remained the most popular table game with $11.2 billion wagered in 2006, a 6.1 percent increase, that translated into a casino win of $1.38 billion, a jump of 11.1 percent over 2005.

As a whole, Clark County reported a gaming win of $10.6 billion in 2006, a 9.5 percent increase compared with $9.7 billion in 2005.

Helped by the April opening of the Red Rock Resort and the December 2005 opening of the South Coast (now named South Point), Clark County's unincorporated areas reported a gaming win of almost $1.3 billion, a 20.3 percent increase from $1.07 billion in 2005.

On the flip side, downtown casinos reported their second straight year of decreased gaming win: $630.4 million, down 3.6 percent compared with $654.1 million in 2005. Last year's gaming win was a 1.3 decrease from 2005. Downtown ended 2006 with seven straight months of decreasing casino revenues.

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