Schenectady: Saratoga Casino revenue plummets 14 percent since Rivers Casino's opening

According to a report by Moody's Investors Service, there has been a 14 percent fall in revenue for Saratoga Casino Hotel since Rivers Casino & Resort opened in Schenectady, New York, nearly a year ago, according to a report by Moody's Investors Service.

The decline isn't as severe as the 40 percent to 50 percent drop that Saratoga Casino Hotel expected before Rivers Casino opened in February 2017, but it's still significant, said Keith Foley, senior vice president at Moody's.

"Fifteen percent is a big number," Foley said in a phone interview today. "That's typically what happens when two casinos go head-to-head."

The report by Moody's, a credit rating service, illustrates how upstate's new Las Vegas-style casinos are taking market share from existing gambling facilities even as overall gambling revenue has increased more than 30 percent at 11 upstate casinos through Nov. 30.

Additionally, the opening of the Catskills Resorts World in March, which is more than 100 miles south of Schenectady, will capture market share from the New York City metro area and Rivers Casino “will experience some negative impact,” according to the report.

Resorts World must also contend with large competing casinos in New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.

Prior to the opening of upstate's new casinos, year-over-year increases in monthly gambling revenue was relatively flat in New York.

"This flat growth speaks to the broader growth challenges facing even new entrants getting off to a strong start in the region as they have not been able to grow the market enough to avoid a substantial amount of cannibalization as well as meet their ramp-up targets," the report states.

Rivers Casino generated $117 million in gross gambling revenue from February to November, according to the report, a pace that falls short of its $222 million first-year projection.

Gross gambling revenue at Saratoga Casino Hotel, which has video lottery terminals and a harness race track, declined from $168 million to $144 million on a 12-month basis, about 14 percent.

Rivers Casino declined comment on the report; Saratoga Casino Hotel officials couldn't immediately be reached.

In the Finger Lakes region, del Lago Resort is hurting competing gambling halls Finger Lakes Gaming and Vernon Downs, which are similar to Saratoga Casino Hotel. All three were once known as "racinos" because they combine harness race tracks with video lottery terminals.

Gary Greenberg, a minority owner of Vernon Downs, said racinos should have been permitted to have table games with live dealers before the Las Vegas-style casinos were allowed to open.

"In each state that has built resort destination casinos this was done to protect racinos," Greenberg wrote in an email today.

del Lago Resort is also falling below expectations. Moody's forecast $250 million in net revenue during the first year, but the results will be closer to $150 million. Moody's earlier this month downgraded the credit rating for the owner of del Lago Resort from B3 stable to Caa2 negative.

Moody's has no credit rating assigned to Rivers Casino, whose majority owner is Rush Street Gaming of Chicago.

"We only rate companies that ask us to rate them," Foley said. "I don't know what kind of debt [Rivers Casino] is using."

The Moody's report was based on monthly revenue reported to the New York State Gaming Commission by 11 upstate casinos. It doesn't include results at Turning Stone in Oneida County and seven other Native American casinos/gambling halls because they're not required to publicly disclose their revenues.

Also not included in the analysis was Tioga Downs near the Pennsylvania border because it was "a little out of the range what we call the immediate market area," Foley said.
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