Blinded by "Casino" Glitter, Pennsylvania regulators approved the crime magnet Slot Barn in Philadelphia called SugarHouse.
Anyone with basic arithmetic skills can disprove the phony Industry promises .... well, that is, anyone who chooses to. Unfortunately, lazy lawmakers and elected officials seeking the easy way out of fiscal disasters they've created seem reluctant to do so.
Saturation point? Even without Foxwoods, SugarHouse is way behind projections
Since having its license finally revoked by the Pennsylvania gaming Control Board last week, the Casino Formerly Known as Foxwoods has been much in the news.
But another story seems to be slipping through the cracks: even without the (presumed) competition from a second Philadelphia casino, Sugarhouse Casino, which opened in September, has shown a surprisingly poor performance.
City Paper finds that Sugarhouse is bringing in less than half the revenue it told the state to expect just six months ago.
In two presentations in May, Sugarhouse offered the Gaming Board revenue estimates that bear little resemblance to the business the casino has brought in so far.
On May 13, Sugarhouse officials made a presentation estimating $240M in net slots revenues for its first year in business with $132M going directly to the state or city in taxes and local share assessment. On May 19, Sugarhouse repeated those projections in another presentation.
Let's do some math: 240 million expected total slot revenue / 52 weeks = 4.6 million per week — right?
And $132 million in tax revenue for the state and city / 52 weeks = $2.5 million weekly — right?
But Sugarhouse isn't bringing in close to that much.
Even during its opening week, Sugarhouse reported just $$3.6M in revenue — still less than the target $4.6.
Since then, slot revenues have dropped by half: last week, they raked in $1.86 million before taxes: that's about forty percent what they're supposed to be making.
To be fair, Sugarhouse's table games are actually ahead of schedule, bringing roughly double the projected amount. But they account for much less of the casino's total earnings: even if table games bring double the expected revenue, it would amount to $5 million dollars extra. The current slots earnings, meanwhile, suggest the casino may bring in as much as $38 million less than expected.
As state officials prepare to bid another casino license for Philadelphia, maybe it's worth asking whether a second casino — or even a first — is even remotely viable.
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