Casinos on the Las Vegas Strip had one of their best years in recent memory in terms of writing off uncollectable gambling debts, according to 2016 figures.

This time of year, David Schwartz, the director of UNLV’s Center for Gaming Research, crunches more numbers than an accountant on a tax-filing deadline.

Like so many who come to the valley, the Blockson family is celebrating. "It's my mother's 50th. That's why we're here, so we are spending all of our money," said Brittany Blockson, a Las Vegas visitor.

After years of bleeding money, Nevada’s casinos area finally turning a profit. But it’s not the high-roller gamblers helping the casinos see green – it’s the shoppers and diners infusing cash into the state’s industry.

Nevada's biggest casinos combined to turn a profit in fiscal 2016 for the first time in eight years, but it wasn't due to gambling winnings, according to an annual report by state regulators.

Internet gambling helped Atlantic City's casinos post their first revenue increase in a decade.

Lucky Dragon will be the Strip’s first new-from-the-ground-up casino since 2010 when it opens on December 3. It’s also the Strip’s first casino designed from scratch for Asian customers, with a particular eye on Chinese players. Fittingly, it’s financed largely from Asia through the U.S. government’s EB-5 program that offers U.S. residency to investors that pony up $500,000 for eligible projects. But unlike most casinos on the Strip looking for Asian customers, Lucky Dragon isn’t targeting visitors from Asia. Its primary market is Asians already living in North America.

n a climate-controlled storage room at the heart of UNLV’s Lied Library, a historic collection of sympathy and solidarity fills 491 boxes.