Ohio casinos closed due to cold weather

Ohioans awoke to below-zero temperatures again Tuesday and many schools throughout the state were closed a second day because of the dangerous cold. Wind chills were expected to be a hazardous 30- to 40-below zero, which can cause frostbite on exposed skin within minutes. A wind chill warning was in effect for the entire state. 

While temperatures didn't approach the all-time record lows set in Ohio during a 1994 cold snap, a number of records were broken for Monday and Tuesday's dates, according to the National Weather Service.

The Horseshoe Casino Cleveland shut its doors at 3 a.m. Monday and was scheduled to open at 4 p.m. Tuesday. The freezing temperatures caused a water pipe to burst overnight at the business, affecting the food court on its second level. The PR Manager Shannon Mortland said that the casino has closed due to severe weather and that updates would be posted on both the casino’s Facebook and Twitter pages.

The Hollywood Casino Toledo closed at 6:30 p.m. Sunday before re-opening Monday afternoon. It closed again at 4 a.m. Tuesday and did not open by early afternoon.

ThistleDown Racino and the Hard Rock Racino Northfield Park remained open. Shannon Mortland, a spokeswoman for the Cleveland casino, said she is unsure of the effect the winter weather will have on the business. A spokesman at the Toledo casino could not be reached.

Gaming experts agree the casinos will lose revenues, but they disagree about the extent. They say it is not uncommon for weather to close casinos, especially for those in the South and the East Coast.

"This will dramatically impact them,'' said Alan Silver, an assistant professor at Ohio University who teaches casino management and marketing. "Any time you lose a couple of days of revenues, it is going to affect the bottom line.''

Silver said he had worked as the vice president of marketing at three tribal casinos in Minnesota, and he said there is a correlation between bad weather and a casino's business. He said that businesses could be hindered by the weather, even after they re-open, as many players might not want to venture out.

But others aren't so sure. "It will have a negative impact, as they won't have revenues for a few days,'' said Randall Fine, the managing director of the Fine Point Group, a casino consulting firm in Las Vegas. "But once they re-open, they should be OK. They might even see a surge, as some people might have cabin fever, and they want to get out.''

Roger Gros, the publisher of Global Gaming Business Magazine, said the closings will affect the businesses a bit in the short term, but it won't hurt them overall. "It could even be a good public-relations move,'' Gros said. "Your employees don't have to go out, and you can save yourself a lot of problems that could happen. People could get stranded, there could be other problems there as well.''

David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, agreed: "It's really a fact of life: You're going to lose a couple of days because of the weather. It happens. But they'll bounce back.''