NWI casino revenues dip in April

Carrie Napoleon, Chicago Tribune
·2 min read

Northwest Indiana’s three casinos reported revenues of $82 million in April, down about 8% from the approximately $88.9 million reported for the same month last year, according to the Indiana Gaming Commission’s monthly gaming report.

Hard Rock Northern Indiana remained a bright spot for earnings with about $39.1 million reported for April, a 2.4% increase over the April 2022 reported $38.4 million, according to the report.

Ameristar Casino in East Chicago reported an April win of $17.1 million in 2023 while Horseshoe Hammond reported about $25.8 million. Those figures compared to $18.9 million and $31.9 million in win respectively for April 2022.

Both Hard Rock and Ameristar saw a dip in revenues from March to April this year. Ameristar reported about $18.2 million in March, $1.1 million more than reported in April — an almost 6% decline. Hard Rock reported $39.7 in March compared to $39.1 million in April — a decline of about 1.5%.

Horseshoe Hammond reported increased revenues from March to April of this year. The casino reported $25.8 million in revenues in March compared to $29.2 million in April — about a 12% increase.

Matt Schuffert, president of Hard Rock Casino Northern Indiana, said while April’s growth was smaller than prior months, they were still pleased.

“We are still doing good,” Schuffert said, adding the casino will not be able to continue to grow forever.

“This just might start to be some of that plateauing of our business,” Schuffert said. Still Hard Rock, for the second month in a row, posted gaming revenues of more than $39 million.

“We’re knocking on that $40 million door,” Schuffert said.

Overall, Schuffert said the market in general is not growing much.

“There’s been definitely some tightening in spending in casinos,” he said.

It is hard to speculate what the April decline for the region may mean moving forward, he said. It could be temporary as the industry traditionally sees a little bit of a slowdown leading into June with graduations, weddings, vacation travel and other external factors vying for people’s time and money.

Things tend to rebound pretty strong leading into July and August, Schuffert said.