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Frabbiele now calls Austintown racino home
By Kalea Hall
AUSTINTOWN
Anthony “Tony” M. Frabbiele is happy to call the Youngstown area home now.
Frabbiele has officially been at Hollywood Gaming Mahoning Valley Race Course for three weeks as the new general manager of the racino.
The third-generation gaming industry employee made it is his goal to become a manager of property such as the Austintown racino.
“I was born and raised in Las Vegas,” he said. “I started as a valet attendee.”
Frabbiele worked his way up in the industry. He received a degree in finance and marketing from Penn State University along the way.
“I got into the business and fell in love with it,” he said. “I knew what I wanted to be before I finished school.”
From 2006 to 2015, Frabbiele worked in a variety of roles in the Atlantic City, N.J., market.
Frabbiele most recently served as vice president and general manager for Gaming and Leisure Properties Inc.’s Hollywood Casino Baton Rouge, La., Gaming.
Leisure Properties Inc. is a real-estate investment trust that was spun off Penn National Gaming Inc., the operator of the Austintown racino.
“I think I have a unique skill set from working in large markets,” Frabbiele said. “From a gaming perspective, we [the Austintown racino] are humming right along.”
The racino’s video lottery terminals, or slot machines, brought in $9.48 million in May with an average of 1,002 machines. That’s up from the $8.44 million brought in with an average of 936 machines in May 2016, according to the Ohio Lottery Commission. The June VLT revenues will be released today.
Since opening with 850 slot machines in 2014, the racino has added about 200 additional gaming devices through a previous gaming-floor expansion in 2015, as well as a smoking-patio expansion in 2016, which added 73 slot machines. This year, the racino added 50 slot machines, bringing the total number of games on the property to 1,030.
“We have done a great job being known within the area,” he said. “I think there’s more opportunity to expand our reach.”
Hollywood Gaming is the first facility Frabbiele has been at with a 1-mile thoroughbred racetrack.
“I am ready to get actively involved when the racing season comes in October,” he said.
Frabbiele is also ready to be involved in the community. “It’s really important for us to be as actively as involved as much we can be,” he said. “We want to be known as the employer of choice in the area.”
Frabbiele succeeds Mike Galle, who was named general manager of Penn National’s Hollywood Casino Gulf Coast and Boomtown Biloxi.