Billed as ‘Chicagoland’s newest world-class gaming destination’ Rivers Casino in Des Plaines is going from strength to strength. Before its opening on 18 July this year, the chairman of Midwest Gaming and Entertainment LLC, Neil Bluhm, described the venue as a showplace attraction for the entire region. He added, “We have considered every detail with our customers in mind.”
Whether it is a case of location, location, location – just 16 miles from downtown Chicago and minutes from O’Hare International Airport – or having hit upon the right formula to attract the custom of locals, tourists and convention goers, the first weeks of operations have been an outstanding success. So successful, in fact, that the Illinois Gaming Board has reported that in its first 6 weeks Rivers Casino more than doubled the amount of business done by any of the other casinos in the state.
Unfortunately for the other nine Illinois casino operators this success came at a cost to them. Their revenues in August this year were down from both the previous month and the previous August. The former revenue leader was Elgin’s Queen Victoria and compared to August 2010 its revenue declined 24%. This suggests that Rivers Casino is attracting gamblers who previously played at other Illinois casinos rather than increasing Illinois gambling clientele.
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Rivers Casino has an undoubted advantage by being land-based and not on a riverboat as well as being a brand new state-of-the-art operation. According to the American Gaming Association’s State of the States, Chicagoland, which encompasses parts of Illinois and Indiana, was the third largest US casino market in 2010, after Atlantic City and top Las Vegas Strip. However, overall 2010 casino revenue in Illinois fell by 4.2% and casino employment fell 2.7%.
The latest casino revenue figures from the Illinois Gaming Board may give pause for thought to those legislators and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel supporting further casino expansion in Illinois. Gaming at Chicago’s two airports plus an additional casino in that city could mean extra tax revenue for state and local government or it could mean further woe for the riverboat casinos and subsequent falling tax revenues there. (E-09.13.11)
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