Casinos In U.S. see casino gambling revenues decline in 2009

Casinos In U.S. see casino gambling revenues decline in 2009 The U.S. recession and the consequently following tightening of the consumers' wallets made the casinos in the United States see a drastic decline in their revenue for the year 2009. According to the Thursday's report by the American Gaming Association, the combined revenue of the United States casinos in 2009 fell 5.5% or $1.8 billion to $30.74 billion. This drop in the casinos' revenue also hurt the local governments with taxes and other payments to the state and locals falling 1.6% to $5.59 billion in 2009. "I don't think there's any way to sugarcoat it - the past year was tough. People had less money to spend on our products...Until people go back to work, businesses that depend on discretionary income are going to continue to struggle," Frank Fahrenkopf, CEO of the American Gaming Association commented on the revenue numbers.

Almost everyone involved with casino gambling is blaming the recession and the decrease of disposable income for the casinos' woes in 2009. Gambling revenues fell in 8 out of the 12 states with legal casino gambling - Colorado, Indiana, Missouri and Pennsylvania are the only states reporting an increase in the casino gambling revenue. Two new casinos opened in Pa. in 2009, which contributed to the increased revenue for that year. In Colorado and Missouri new laws are the likely reason the casinos there saw an increase in gambling revenues - Colorado increased hours and games, along with relaxing bet limits, while Missouri removed loss limits at the casinos. The 11 casinos in Atlantic City saw the biggest decline in revenues for 2009 at 13.3%, mostly due to the increased competition from the Pennsylvania casinos, which were the winners in 2009 with the highest casino gambling revenue increase at 21/6% on the upside.

According the the reports, lottery revenues in the fiscal 2009 were at $53.1 billion, a small drop from the $53.4 billion in lottery revenue reported for 2008 in all states where this form of gambling is legal. Horse racing presents similar story with half of the 12 states with legal pari-mutuel horse betting reporting revenue increase and the other half reported declines. In 2009 among the 13 states with casinos, gambling jobs fell from 357,000 in 2008 to 328,000 workers employed throughout the United States casinos in the last year.

Published on 05/07/2010