BY MARY PEREZ Sun herald
Coast casino revenue remained relatively flat in April — coming in $726,000 less than 2013. Yet that was enough of a drop to put it in the books as the lowest April take since 1998, except for the year after Hurricane Katrina, when some casinos hadn’t yet reopened.
The 12 casinos in South Mississippi combined to win $84.5 million from gamblers in April compared with $85.3 million a year ago. The casinos in the river counties saw revenue drop to $79.8 million in April, down more than $10 million from April 2013 and the worst April for the river casinos since 1994.
Total April revenue of $164.4 million for the state was a 6 percent decline from a year ago, according to reports by the Mississippi Department of Revenue.
For the first four months of the year, gross casino revenue in South Mississippi is $359.8 million, or $2 million below this time last year.
Casino operators in South Mississippi continue to invest in new hotels, restaurants and other amenities despite the flat revenue. The first-quarter report by the Mississippi Gaming Commission shows casinos added hotel rooms and cut expenses since last year:
n Capital investments are up by $40 million to $690 million, compared with the first quarter of 2013.
n The opening of Hard Rock Casino Biloxi’s new hotel tower increased the number of Coast casino hotel guest rooms to 5,709.
n Total personnel dropped by 1,000 in the last year in South Mississippi. The total at the end of the first quarter was 9,245, compared with 10,272 the previous year.
n Casinos cut back on slot machines to 14,279 in the first quarter from 14,571 a year ago.
n Approximate visitors to the Coast casinos in the first three months was 3.62 million, compared with 3.74 million in first quarter 2013.
n Thirty-two percent of those customers were from Mississippi and about 16 percent each were from Alabama, Florida and Louisiana.
n Hotel rooms under construction at Coast casinos total 547. The occupancy rate for the first quarter was 90 percent, up from 85 percent last year, and that includes the new rooms at Hard Rock. The average daily rate was down $2 from a year ago to $69.
Read more here: http://www.sunherald.com/2014/05/21/559 … rylink=cpy
Replies:
Posted by: TommyC on May 22, 2014, 4:36 pm
Posted by: Dr Crapology on May 26, 2014, 3:54 pm
Now days the corporate suits only want to give the worst games possible as long as the gamblers keep coming and the profits stay high. The sad part is the gamblers just keep coming not knowing what the house advantage is and evidently not caring as long as the booze holds out. A 6/5 black jack game is a typical game the gamblers keep playing.
I read about the action the casino’s took when Ed Thorp’s book "Beat The Dealer" first came out the corporate suits were in a panic mode and make the games must harder to beat with 8 deck shoes, limiting double down, splitting, etc. The win from BJ went down as few and fewer people were playing. Didn’t take them long to figure out most so called card counters were not very good so they went back with many of the good rules and their profits went back up.
Mississippi should bring back the good games and machines—they will make more money.
Rose and Doc
