SugarHouse Boosts Pa. Slots Revenue With Big Gains
By Harrisburg Bureau Chief Tony Romeo
HARRISBURG, Pa. (CBS) - Slots revenues were up 6.5% in Pennsylvania last month, compared to November 2010, thanks in large part to impressive increases posted by Philadelphia's SugarHouse Casino.
All 10 of Pennsylvania's casinos have been open for a more than year now. For SugarHouse, October marked the first chance to compare slots revenues for a full month on a year-to-year basis. For both October and November of this year, SugarHouse's slots revenues have run close to $15-million. For October, that was a year-to-year increase of almost 20% and for November, it was an increase of more than 48%.
"Well, all of the casinos, as they've gotten underway, had needed some type of a ramp-up period – their marketing efforts, their players' club efforts, all of those have to mature a bit," says Gaming Control Board spokesman Doug Harbach. "And SugarHouse's has done so."
SugarHouse's gross slots revenues remain among the lowest of Pennsylvania's casinos, but it also has the fewest machines.
"SugarHouse per-machine is doing the highest in the state, so that usually means – and they are planning for this – that they would have some expansion on the number of slot machines, and a larger gaming floor."
Parx, with the most machines in the state, continues to lead all casinos in gross revenues.
