Over the past eight years, the addition and expansion of casinos in Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island and Maine have contributed to a $1.2 billion decline (39 percent) in Connecticut casinos’ gross gambling revenue, according to a report released Wednesday by gaming research firm Pyramid Associates.
Between 2008 and 2014, Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods’ combined market share among the 10 Northeast states with casinos and slots parlors has fallen from 18 percent to 10 percent, according to Pyramid, which is headed by former UMass professor Clyde W. Barrow, who is now at the University of Texas.
Since 2004, the number of class III gaming establishments in the Northeast has grown from 24 to 64.
Pennsylvania now sends virtually no gamblers to Connecticut, since opening 12 casinos over the past decade, and New York spending in New England casinos has been slashed nearly in half since 2008, the report said. Rhode Island’s Twin River casino, which added table games in 2013, has also increasingly siphoned off business from the two Connecticut casinos.
The declines have pushed Foxwoods to reduce its employment from a peak of 12,800 in 2006 to 7,558 and Mohegan from 10,500 to 7,205, Pyramid said.
Competition has not been the only factor. The 2008-2010 recession tightened up many gamblers’ wallets. For example, Massachusetts residents’ spending at Connecticut casinos has fallen by $360 million since 2008, but only increased by $155 million in Rhode Island.
Lower gas prices, rising home prices and increasing consumer confidence is only recently starting to roll back those lingering recessionary impacts, Pyramid said, but an impending gaming market expansion in Massachusetts may well erase any gains.
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