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Kansas Casinos Improves Overall Profit Despite Increasing Gas Expenses

Increasing gas expenses did not affected the overall gambling profit of most Missouri riverboat casino facilities on May 2008. It was announced on June 10th, 2008 that Kansas City casino boats achieved one of their most profitable months ever while statewide gaming profits improved by 13.4% or $153.5 million.

Tom Cook, the general manager at Harrah's North Kansas City Casino and Hotel commented that an extra week on the month of May has really helped their cause. Some of their customers are being affected with the increasing gas prices so it is an added bonus to casinos in the state. It means that players will not travel out of the state and just play on casino facilities near their residence.

Missouri's profit gain was helped by the Lumiere Place casino in St. Louis, which opened for business on December 2007. Lumiere Place's $15.3 million earnings in May helped the St. Louis gambling market to a 22.7% profit gain over May 2007, according to the data by the Missouri Gaming Commission. Oppenheimer industry analyst David Katz commented that without the figures of Lumiere Place, statewide profits will only be ay 2.1%. Kansas City's four casino riverboats improved their profits up to 7.2% or $64.9 million.

Casino facilities elsewhere posted profits results ranged from a drop of 14.1% in Illinois where the casino gaming floor smoking ban has been enforced since January 2008, to a 0.8% casino profit improvement in Indiana, to a 13.2% profit improvement in Indiana where newly opened casino facilities are helping to improved the bottom line.

Deutsche Bank analyst Andrew Zarnett is not too enthusiastic about the situation even with the modest profit results of the casinos because sooner or later, customers will have to cut back on their spending especially with the non-stop increase of oil prices. On the local level, the casino gaming market was led by the Ameristar Kansas City Casino and Hotel with profits of $23.3 million, up by 10.1% for a total of thirty six percent casino market share and its largest part of the market for more than a year. Harrah's was in solid 2nd place with $17.9 million, which improved by 6.2% for a 27.6 share of the casino market.

The Argosy Casino Hotel and Spa in Riverside earned $16.5 million, which improved by 9.6% for a 25.5% share of the casino market. The Isle of Capri casino continued to lag in the market with $7 million and a 10.7% share of the pie. It was the only casino that has its profits and admission slide down for the month of May. Isle's admissions drop by 11.1% while its profits drop by 4.4%.

06/23/2008 03:17 PM

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