Published on Thursday 8th

Report shows Four Winds South Bend casino opening had little impact on Northwest Indiana

Northwest Indiana's five casinos collectively took in a total of $73.78 million, which accounted for a 1.4 percent fall from the $74.97 million-influx in January 2017.
2018-02-12
Reading time 2:23 min
According to the monthly revenues report released by the Indiana Gaming Commission for January, Northwest Indiana's five casinos collectively took in a total of $73.78 million, which accounted for a 1.4 percent fall from the $74.97 million-influx in January 2017.

According to the monthly revenues report released by the Indiana Gaming Commission for January, Northwest Indiana's five casinos collectively took in a total of $73.78 million, which accounted for a 1.4 percent fall from the $74.97 million-influx in January 2017.

"We expected about a 2 percent decline last month, based on the calendar alone," said Dan Nita, senior vice president and general manager of Horseshoe Hammond Casino. Allegedly, the impact was lesser than expected, and reportedly better than the 3.5 percent drop the Illinois casinos in the Chicago region experienced.

Nita said the state's newest competitor — Four Winds South Bend, a slot machine-only venue operated by the Potawatomi Tribe — was only open for half a month, blunting its effect on the area's casinos.

"We'll see its full impact in February. We fully expect our guests to try it," Nita said.

Matt Schuffert, vice president and general manager of Ameristar Casino and Hotel in East Chicago, said it's still too early to tell what type of impact the South Bend casino will have on the local market.

He said Ameristar "definitely had a strong month," especially on the table games side, due both to the volume of play and the fact that the casino "had some luck" in January.

"I'm hoping we'll start to see some growth on the slot side," Schuffert said.

Nita said there was a definite difference between slots and table games last month at Horseshoe, with slots win down 7 percent across the board while table volume was up more than 7 percent and table win up 21 percent.

He said at this point Horseshoe has enough table games to accommodate its business, but added should the industry continue to evolve toward more table games the casino would look "to substitute some of its slot product for table product."

According to the revenues report, Blue Chip Casino in Michigan City took the biggest hit from the new Four Winds opening as expected. Its revenues dropped from $11.98 million in January 2017 to $10.66 million this January and its attendance dropped from 168,028 customers to 142,549.

Still, table games inched up for Blue Chip, from $1.24 million in revenues in January 2017 to $1.36 million last month. Blue Chip is the closest Northwest Indiana casino to Four Winds South Bend and Four Winds New Buffalo, Mich.

Ameristar, meanwhile, was the only area casino to increase its revenues over last year, going from $17.09 million in January 2017 to $18.46 million this January. Table games accounted for $5.46 million last month and $3.37 million the previous January.

Ameristar's slot revenue was down from $13.73 million to $13 million and its attendance was down from 185,882 to 160,406.

Horseshoe Hammond took in $33.54 million last month compared to $33.8 million in January 2017. Table games went from $9.84 million to $10.87 million while slots dropped from $23.96 million to $22.67 million. Attendance at Horseshoe Hammond dropped from 283,751 to 254,715 visitors.

Majestic Star Casino 1 in Gary took in $6.56 million, compared to $7.27 million last January, while Majestic Star II took in $4.56 million compared to $4.83 million last January. Both table games and slot revenue dropped slightly at the two Gary casinos.

Attendance at the two casinos together was 126,674 last month, compared to 136,556 in January last year.

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