{"id":11496,"date":"2013-09-10T12:12:39","date_gmt":"2013-09-10T20:12:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=11496"},"modified":"2018-09-24T09:16:40","modified_gmt":"2018-09-24T17:16:40","slug":"upturn-in-illinois-blindsided-in-indiana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/upturn-in-illinois-blindsided-in-indiana\/","title":{"rendered":"Upturn in Illinois, blindsided in Indiana"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Could we finally be seeing “green shoots” in Illinois<\/strong>, up 5% last month? Maybe, although such recovery as there was consisted of the force that is Rivers Casino<\/strong>, up 36%. Penn National Gaming<\/strong>‘s three casinos posted a feeble $29 million, down 7% and undershooting Wall Street<\/strong>‘s expectations. Caesars Entertainment<\/strong>‘s two casinos were, combined, flat year-over-year, for a $27 gross, while Boyd Gaming<\/strong>‘s Par-A-Dice<\/em> fell 8%, to $9 million. MGM Resorts International<\/strong>‘s Grand Victoria<\/em> saw a rare but welcome 4% uptick. Statewide, customers visited less (-6.5%) but spent a lot more (up 12%). Other than Grand Victoria<\/em> and Rivers<\/strong>, Harrah’s Joliet<\/em> was the only casino to post a revenue positive month, up 3%.<\/p>\n

\"\"The beleaguered casino owners are teaming up, though, to press more 24-hour operations. “Opponents contend that nonstop betting would create a dangerous situation for gambling addicts who could end up sitting in front of a casino table or machine for days<\/em>,” reports the Chicago Tribune<\/em>. Of course, addicts can already do that at any of the state’s slot routes. Having dumped several thousand land-based slot machines into the market Illinois’ government should consider itself obligated to do the right thing and grant casinos those two extra hours a day. Riverboat casinos are also taxed at a much higher rate, which also argues for gaming regulators to level the playing field.<\/p>\n

Indiana had a worse time<\/strong> of it last month, as fewer visited (-12%) but still spent more \"\"(7%). However, that wasn’t enough to counteract a contraction in the market, with revenues off 6%, mostly in the south. Hollywood Lawrenceburg<\/em> (left<\/em>) got hit hard by competition from Ohio<\/strong>, down 35%. Fairly slightly better was Belterra<\/strong>, down “only” 23% but grossing only half as much as H’wood Lawrenceburg<\/em>. New, Caesars-owned\u00a0competition took only a minimal bite of out of Horseshoe Southern Indiana<\/em>‘s butt. At the north end of the state, Horseshoe Hammond<\/em> ($41.6 million) was the revenue champion, beating any other casino in the state by a huge margin.<\/p>\n

The racinos were crazy busy, too. Hoosier Park<\/strong> was up 19.5% and Indiana Live<\/strong> posted a 24% leap. The numbers are doubly impressive when you look at August 2012 and see that the tracks’ grosses grew 15% and 19%, respectively, back then. No riverboat had a revenue-positive month but at least the northern ones were able to keep their retreats within single-digit margins. Horseshoe Cincinnati<\/strong> may not be a massive breakout hit but it’s eating southern Indiana’s lunch just the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Could we finally be seeing “green shoots” in Illinois, up 5% last month? Maybe, although such recovery as there was consisted of the force that is Rivers Casino, up 36%. Penn National Gaming‘s three casinos posted a feeble $29 million, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[28,14,7,58,68,11,91,71,69,30,111,25,92,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11496"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11496"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22519,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11496\/revisions\/22519"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}