Louisiana casinos given tepid financial projections despite March gains

Article by : Charles Perrin Apr 30, 2024

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Louisiana casinos appear to be in rude health judging by the latest March revenues that have been posted.

The 14 riverboat casinos combined to rake in $166.3 million in adjusted gross revenue (AGR) for March, representing an uptick of 16.3% compared to February ($143 million).

L’Auberge Lake Charles proved to be the top performer, hauling in close to $31 million in AGR, reflecting a staggering rise of 26.01%.

Although monthly numbers were largely encouraging for riverboat casinos, AGR came up short year-on-year, with March 2023 seeing more than $300,000 brought in compared to last month.

Land-based casinos were also successful, posting $22.2 million in AGR and that saw an increase on February’s numbers too.

Meanwhile, racinos, which are horse tracks with slot gaming, pulled their weight with AGR of $32.2 million, again accounting for month-on-month gains compared to February.

Despite the positive outlook gained from the monthly revenues, this has been tempered by the financial projections for the next few months.

AGR, it is believed, will broadly follow national revenue patterns, with revenues set to drop steadily from April to July or August before bouncing back strongly in September.

It is also worth noting that Louisiana is also missing out by not having online casinos.

There have been suggestions that should Louisiana change its hardball stance and introduce online casinos, then the state could generate over $80 million in a good month.

Arguably from a revenue perspective, Louisiana could make a huge impact with online casinos. But at the moment, it is proving to be a hard sell and there appears to be little appetite to deviate away from the status quo.

From a retail perspective, however, Louisiana has been gathering momentum on the casino front over the past few months, but there could be some bumps in the road on the horizon.