Industry News
The state's 13 riverboat casinos, as well as Harrah's New Orleans land casino and four racetrack casinos, reported winnings of $235.2 million, up from $213.1 million in April, state police reported this week. A year ago, the casinos reported $220.5 million in winnings.
The increase reverses a 7.2 percent drop in revenue from gambling from March to April.
Louisiana State University economist Loren Scott said the casinos had five weekends of operation in May 2008 compared with four a year ago. What's more, gamblers took part of their tax rebates to the casinos. "Surveys showed people were going to spend about half of it and stash the other half. So, there's some discretionary income there," Scott said.
According to Wade Duty, executive director of the Casino Association of Louisiana, revenues went down after Hurricane Katrina. "You want to grow about four percent a year. We've only grown about 2 percent a year," he said.
The strongest performance was recorded in markets that attract gamblers from nearby Texas, including:
* Shreveport-Bossier City, which serves gamblers from Dallas-Fort Worth, recorded $76.3 million in winnings, up from $69.1 million in April and $69.5 million in May 2007.
* Casinos in Lake Charles, a favorite of Houston-area players, won just over $60 million in May, up from $53.4 million in April and $55 million in May 2007.
Other strong performers included:
* The New Orleans market won $64.2 million last month, up from $59.4 million in April and $63.4 million in May 2007.
* The Baton Rouge market took in $19.8 million in May, up from the April figure of $18.3 million and $20.1 million in May 2007.
* In Opelousas, the Evangeline Downs track casino took in $9.8 million in May, compared with $8.7 million in April and $9.3 million in May 2007.
* The sole riverboat casino in the Morgan City market won $5 million in May, up from $4 million in April. Opening in the middle of May 2007, that boat won $2.8 million for about two weeks of operation.
The massive sales increase report did not include the state's three Indian reservation casinos, which are not required to publicly report their winnings.
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