Indiana’s casinos start to overcome downturn

nos in Northwest Indiana enjoyed an exceptional March with a boost to revenue of $90.7m from last year, an increase of 1.2%.

Dan Nita, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Horseshoe Casino said: “The casino floor felt more energy in March.

“For the first time since November, we showed year-over-year growth.”

Electronic games led the way, with a collective win of $71.7m, up 2% from a year ago, however, table game winnings were down 1.7% in casinos around the area.

Michigan City’s Blue Chip casino saw the largest gain at 3.8%, while Majestic Star’s two Gary boats were up 2.4%, and Horseshoe casino in Hammond was up 2%. Meanwhile, Ameristar in East Chicago was the only casino to record a loss in the past month, being down by 2.8%.

Admissions at the casino over the past year were fundamentally even with a total of 890,000, down less than 1% from the year before.

The region’s casinos took around $244.5m for the first quarter of 2017, which is down by 3.3% from last year. March was only the second month within the past 12 that saw a rise in gambling revenue, but this gain helped to lessen the overall downturn.

“The fact we were able to eat away half of that decline in one month – I’m encouraged by that trend,” Nita explained.