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Annual casino tax revenues fall slightly
YOUNGSTOWN
Ohio’s four casinos are holding their own despite competition from the state’s seven racinos, with casino tax revenues to Trumbull, Mahoning and Columbiana counties and the city of Youngstown for 2015 only slightly below those of 2014.
Revenue from fourth-quarter casino gambling in 2015, however, outperformed the same quarter in 2014 but fell below the final quarter of 2013, according to recently released Ohio Department of Taxation figures.
The numbers are based on all four Ohio casinos having been in operation throughout the comparison period and paying a 33 percent tax on gross revenues.
Casino tax revenues are distributed quarterly to Ohio’s 88 counties and eight major cities, including Youngstown.
The casinos in Cleveland and Toledo opened in May 2012, with the Columbus casino opening in October of that year and the Cincinnati casino opening in March 2013.
Though all four casinos were functioning throughout the comparison period, competing racinos were gradually opening, with Ohio’s seventh and final racino having opened in Austintown on Sept. 17, 2014.
“As the economy has improved in many areas, people are starting to have more discretionary spending that they can use to go to a casino or a racino,” said Jessica Franks, communications director for the Ohio Casino Control Commission, explaining why the casinos have held onto their business despite competition from the racinos.
Franks also said through their operating experience, the casinos have improved their marketing strategies for attracting and retaining gamblers, including tournament promotions, free-play offers, concerts and other amenities.
For 2015, Mahoning County and Youngstown are getting $1,368,810 each in casino-tax revenues for the entire year, compared with $1,378,561 in 2014, for a decline of only $9,751.
In Trumbull County, the numbers are $2,408,582 for 2015, compared with $2,433,779 for the prior year.
Trumbull’s 2015 figure exceeded county Auditor Adrian Biviano’s estimate of $2.2 million for the entire year.
“We were anticipating a bigger loss than happened,” Frank Fuda, a Trumbull County commissioner, said, expressing surprise the casinos held their own in the competitive environment.
Local financial officials may have been conservative in their casino-tax revenue projections because of the unpredictability of that revenue source as competing racinos opened, Franks said.
“Gambling is a very difficult thing to project,” said Mahoning County Commissioner Carol Rimedio-Righetti.
“We’re hoping that the casinos do well because that helps us with our general fund,” Fuda said of his county’s main operating fund.
The casinos have the advantage of table games, which the racinos don’t have, Fuda noted.
Rimedio-Righetti said she’d like to see table games introduced to the Austintown racino.
“People want to play cards. They want to have dice. They like roulette, and we don’t have any of that here,” she said.
In Columbiana County, casino revenues were $1,240,665 for 2015, compared with $1,248,390 for 2014.
Fourth-quarter casino-tax revenues for Mahoning County and Youngstown were $344,960 for each entity in 2015, $329,026 each in 2014 and $356,791 each in 2013.
The fourth-quarter numbers for Trumbull County were $606,997 in 2015, $580,879 in 2014 and $629,403 in 2013.
Columbiana County’s fourth-quarter figures were $312,665, $297,958 and $323,211, for 2015, 2014 and 2013, respectively.
Exceptionally mild weather late in 2015 contributed to that year’s strong fourth-quarter casino performance, Fuda and Rimedio-Righetti said.
“People didn’t want to drive in the terrible weather” late in 2014, Fuda said.
“We have had a very mild winter,” Rimedio-Righetti said. “When you have nice weather, people are more apt to get in their car and drive to a casino or drive anywhere.”
Fuda observed that the Austintown racino, Hollywood Gaming at Mahoning Valley Race Course, was crowded when he was there on New Year’s Eve and that others told him the Cleveland casino and Mountaineer Casino Racetrack and Resort in New Cumberland, W.Va., were also crowded that night.