{"id":12440,"date":"2014-01-10T14:06:54","date_gmt":"2014-01-10T22:06:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=12440"},"modified":"2014-01-10T14:06:54","modified_gmt":"2014-01-10T22:06:54","slug":"frigid-winter-for-midwest-casinos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/frigid-winter-for-midwest-casinos\/","title":{"rendered":"Frigid winter for Midwest casinos"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blame it on brutal weather or whatever your like but Midwest casino revenues have been dismal in December and it’s my doleful duty to report them. Missouri<\/strong> dipped 11%. Positive performers, like Pinnacle \"River<\/a>Entertainment<\/strong>‘s River City<\/strong> (+6%) were few. Of two properties that are in the process of changing hands, Ameristar St. Charles<\/strong> plunged 13% while Lumiere Place<\/strong> fell 10%. Hollywood Casino St. Louis<\/strong> is having difficulty finding traction under its new brand, yielding 11% from last year’s performance. Penn National Gaming’<\/strong>s Argosy Riverside<\/strong> had it even worse, -13%. So did Pinnacle Entertainment<\/strong>‘s Ameristar Kansas City<\/strong>, down 14%. Isle of Capri Kansas City<\/strong> also had a 13% drop while Harrah’s North Kansas City<\/strong> did just slightly better, -12%. Isle was down 13% statewide, with Isle of Capri Cape Girardeau<\/strong> continuing to disappoint, down 15%.<\/p>\n

\"HET<\/a>To the north, Iowa<\/strong> had a less-dismal month, down just 8%. Some properties got hit extra hard through, like Argosy Sioux City<\/strong>, off 18.5%. Ameristar Council Bluffs<\/strong> managed to stay flat with last year and Harrah’s Council Bluffs<\/strong>, formerly the leper of the Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> colony, posted a 2% increase. Congratulations. Isle of Capri’s fortunes, however, were much as in Missouri<\/strong> — down 11%, I’m afraid. (Most of Iowa’s casinos and tracks are such penny-ante properties that they’re subject to highly volatile revenue swings, not worth reporting.)<\/p>\n

Indiana<\/strong> had an absolutely dreadful December, down 16%. Considering that Northern Indiana (-18%) had it worse than Southern Indiana (15%), I am forced to conclude that players are just staying home, even allowing for new competition in Ohio<\/strong>. Even besieged by Horseshoe Casino Cleveland<\/strong>, \"CasinoAztar\"<\/a>Pinnacle’s Belterra<\/strong> revenues were only off 12% for 4Q13, not the 14% expected by J.P. Morgan<\/strong> analyst Joseph Greff<\/strong>. However, the former Ameristar East Chicago<\/strong> went down 12.5% in 4Q13, not Greff’s projected 5%.\u00a0December comparisons included Horseshoe Hammond<\/strong> (-17%), Ameristar East Chicago<\/strong> (-20.5%) and Boyd Gaming<\/strong>‘s Blue Chip<\/strong> (-18%). Only Tropicana Entertainment<\/strong>‘s Casino Aztar<\/strong> and racino Indiana Live<\/strong> were revenue-positive for the month. Independent Rising Sun<\/strong> (-34%) and Penn National’s Hollywood Casino Lawrenceburg<\/strong> (-42%) were walloped by new competition, with Rising Sun having sunken to the lowest-grossing position in the state. Belterra was down 9% for the month and French Lick<\/strong> took a 15% licking.<\/p>\n

Sorry for all the bad news, folks, but it’s cold out there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blame it on brutal weather or whatever your like but Midwest casino revenues have been dismal in December and it’s my doleful duty to report them. Missouri dipped 11%. Positive performers, like Pinnacle Entertainment‘s River City (+6%) were few. Of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[40,60,28,14,7,68,86,85,39,69,30,111,21,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12440"}],"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=12440"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12441,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12440\/revisions\/12441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}