Ohio Casino Revenues Fall By 6% in May

Ohio’s four casinos generated revenues of $66.5 million in May, representing a 6% decline compared to the $71 million that was collected in the same month last year. The results, however, were balanced by a 6% increase in revenues produced by the state’s seven racinos which reached $78.24 million compared to the $73.6 million taken in May of 2015.
At Ohio’s casinos last month, table games accounted for $23.8 million of revenues, while slots machines generated the remaining $47.2 million. Leading the casino market in terms of revenues was the JACK Cleveland Casino down by 17% to $16 million; followed by the Hollywood Columbus down by 3% to $17.8 million; the Horseshoe Cincinnati down by 3% to $16.2 million; and finally the Hollywood Toledo down by 2% to $16.5 million.
Accounting for some of the casinos’ declines was the Cleveland facility shutting its business for 40-hours in mid-May while it changed from being the Horseshoe Casino Cleveland to the Jack Cleveland Casino. Also following suit was the Thistledown Racino in North Randall which is now called the Jack ThistleDown Racino.
Despite their declines, total gaming revenues for Ohio’s casino are still currently 1.6% higher for the first five months of 2016, though, having generated $351.4 million through to May, compared to $345.8 million for the same period of time last year.
Meanwhile, Ohio slots-only racinos generated $73.6 million in May, with all seven venues reporting year-over-year gains. Topping the market was the Hard Rock Rocksino with $19.4 million in revenues, up by 3.6% versus the same month in 2015. Scioto Downs was next with $13.4 million (+3%); followed by Miami Valley Gaming with $12.3 million (+14%); JACK ThistleDown Racino with $10 million (+3%); Hollywood Mahoning Valley with $8.4 million (+7.4%); Hollywood Dayton with $7.6 million (+2.6%); and finally Belterra Park with $7 million (+12%).
Ohio’s overall gambling industry collected $1.64 billion for the whole of 2015, up from $1.46 billion for the previous year. As professor Alan Silver from Ohio University commented at the time: “That doesn’t say ‘saturation’ to me. Once an industry reaches maturity there’s a slow, gradual decline, and it hasn’t really declined yet, so it could still be in a growth stage.”