Mohegan Sun Still Losing Money
The Mohegan Sun has seen its slots and gambling revenue drop for the second consecutive week. It seems that the opening of the Mount Airy Casino Resort is having a negative effect on the tribe’s bottom line. In fact, a negative effect to the tune of several millions of dollars.
The casino showed slots revenue of $33.3 million from the 1,203 slots that they currently run. There are an additional 100 slots that the casino has added, which means that the payout per slots numbers is even lower than it seems. The week before the Mount Airy Casino Resort opened, the Mohegan Sun brought in $41.7 million – a difference of $8.4 million.
Even with Mount Airy losing some steam on their second week, the Mohegan Sun brought in their lowest numbers yet. Mount Airy was down $7.2 million from the week before – which is not unusual considering some will come to the grand opening just to see what it is like and then not come back. The casino fully expects to see their slots numbers grow as word of mouth attests to the amenities of the casino.
With less money coming into the casino’s slots, this means less money for the state and for local government as well. It is not only the casinos that suffer when they lose, everyone does. The locals saw about $28,000 less than they had previously, which hurts on the local level much more than on the state.
Slots and casino opponents say that this is what they warned of when people wanted to allow slots to come in. They say that you cannot base a budget or financial system on numbers that cannot be guaranteed. Experts say that the numbers stand a good chance of rising after the Mount Airy Casino loses some of its newness. People are simply curious to see what the fuss is all about.
Back to December 2007 Archive.
