This week the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) has fined Mount Airy Resort and Casino US$100,000 for allowing underage access to its gaming floor and machines and announced a 16% increase in February slots revenue to US$168,279,514 in gross revenue, although snow has impacted on casino takings. Record snowfalls throughout Pennsylvania caused casino closures and made travel by patrons to the facilities difficult.
“The significant amount of snow certainly affected the ability of casinos to attract their normal flow of patrons and lowered expected revenue,” says Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board Executive Director Kevin O’Toole. “But, with two additional casinos open during February of this year, overall revenue from slot machine gaming did increase.” The figures for the individual casinos released by the Gaming Control Board show the effect the poor weather had on slot machine revenue, with six of the seven casinos that were open in both February of 2009 and 2010 showing decreases. Overall, those seven casinos suffered a revenue decrease of 9.74% during February.
The average number of slot machines operating daily at the nine casinos was 25,527 in February 2010 compared to 16,817 in February 2009. Only the newly opened permanent casino, parx casino, at Philadelphia Park Racetrack had higher revenue in February 2010 than in February 2009, up 5.32% to over US$32 million.
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Pennsylvania citizens saw a return of US$92,552,028 in February of this year, an average of US$3.3 million of taxes collected per day.
There were six incidents of underage violations at Mount Airy between July and November 2009 and the US$100,000 fine was part of a consent agreement between the PGCB’s Office of Enforcement Council and the casino operator. In addition to the underage violations, Mount Airy security staff failed to notify the Gaming Control Board of the violations in the first four instances. As well as the fine, Mount Airy purchased eight identification-scanning devices to assist in preventing occurrences of underage (under 21) individuals gaining access to the gaming floor. The devices scan driver’s licenses and photographic identification to insure the documents are valid and the individuals seeking access to the gaming floor are the proper age.
(E-03.04.10)
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