Cold month tempers profits at Ohio’s gambling venues

“The weather does impact casino revenue,” said Alan Silver, an Ohio University assistant professor of restaurant, hotel and tourism and a former casino executive. “People just don’t like to go out when it’s that cold.”

The average daily temperature was lower than 20 degrees on 15 different days in February, compared with only nine days in February 2014, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Despite the freeze, revenue was up 2.8 percent at the Scioto Downs Racino to $11.4 million, according to the Ohio Lottery Commission.

The cold “absolutely had an impact, and we did notice on the really cold days that it was slow on the floors,” said Ashley Redmon, spokeswoman for Scioto Downs. “We’ve seen this before and planned for it and had several promotions to get people out.”

It was a different story at Hollywood Casino Columbus, where revenue totaled $16.6 million, down 5 percent from a year earlier, according to the Ohio Casino Control Commission.

“We’ve learned that when the temperature gets down around 20 degrees or below, we see a big drop in business,” said Hollywood Columbus spokesman Bob Tenenbaum.

Its sister property had it worse. Hollywood Casino Toledo closed for 24 hours starting at 2 p.m. on Feb. 1 because of a level 3 snow emergency.

Overall, the February revenue of the state’s four casinos was $67.5 million, up 1.1 percent from a year earlier even though it was down at three of the four venues. Horseshoe Cleveland was the exception, with monthly revenue of $20.1 million, an impressive 14.7 percent jump. Most of the earnings came from the casino’s table-game revenue, which was $10.2 million, a 48.9 percent jump from February 2014.

“A lot of that had to do with the Chinese New Year,” Silver said. “They do a very good marketing (push) to the Asian community.”

However, slot-machine revenue is more stable than revenue from table games, he said.

“Table games are volatile. You’re up one month and down the next,” Silver said. “So I don’t expect that number to hold up every month.”

Revenue at the state’s seven racinos was $62.8 million, a 44.1 percent increase from a year earlier. However, only four were open in February 2014.

The Hard Rock Rocksino Northfield Park, near Cleveland, had the highest racino revenue in February at $14.8 million, an 11.9 percent increase from a year earlier.