Mississippi Casinos Down 8% To $165.8m In November 2011

Mississippi has just announced its casino gambling figures for November revealing a nearly 8% fall in revenue to $165.8 million, down from $179.6 million for the same month last year.
November’s revenue was the one of the worst recorded in almost 11 years, with the Southern State’s 19 river casinos seeing a decline of 10% to $84.7 million, while its 11 coast casinos also fell 5% to $81.1 million.
With the exception of Indian tribal casinos which are legally exempt from public scrutiny, the State’s gross revenue is currently down 7% to $2.05 billion for 2011, with Scott King from  the Mississippi Gulf Coast Business Council commenting:
“I don’t think there’s any hiding or glossing over the fact that 2011 has not been a good year for casinos. To state the obvious, the economic landscape is still not real favorable.”
As well as suffering this year from the continuing global downturn, Mississippi also suffered in May and June from flooding, which directly affected the revenue of its 19 river casinos. Mississippi may also be adversely suffering from competition from neighbouring states, such as the two racetrack casinos now operating in Arkansas.
Mississippi’s casinos hit an all time high in 2007 of $2.89 billion in revenue , but have been falling ever since. The state now faces the prospect of four straight years of declining revenues, with $150 million in state gambling taxes expected to be collected this year. Fortunately, gambling revenues constitute only a small percentage of the state’s $4 billion annual tax revenue.
USA casino revenues have been falling across the board over the past few years with Las Vegas losing its status as the world’s most popular gambling resort to Macau back in 2006. Even the USA’ second biggest gambling resort Atlantic City is currently in the middle of a five-year slump, with revenues having fallen from $5.2 billion in 2006 to around $3.3 billion this year.
However, gambling newcomers such as Pennsylvania, Maryland, Maine, and Delaware, seem to have bucked the trend and experienced consistent growth over their recent history.