Gambling revenue up in Massachusetts
The local commission reported that local casinos generated US$34 million during February operations.
US.- The Massachusetts Gaming Commission has reported that Plainridge Park Casino and MGM Springfield generated approximately US$34 million in gross gaming revenue (GGR) in February 2019.
Plainridge Park, which is a category 2 slots facility, is taxed on 49% of GGR: of that total taxed amount, 82% is paid to Local Aid and 18% is allotted to the Race Horse Development Fund. On the other hand, MGM Springfield, a category 1 resort-casino, is taxed on 25% of GGR.
The gambling commission revealed that to date, the state has collected approximately US$332 million in total taxes and assessments from PPC and MGM since the respective openings of each gaming facility.
Plainridge registered US$12.5 million in slot GGR, which is a modest US$200k increase when compared to the previous month and a decrease of US$1.3 million if February 2018 is taken into account.
Moreover, MGM totalled US$14.5 million in slot GGR, and while it can’t be compared to February 2018 because it wasn’t open to the public, the figure has doubled from August 23-31, when the casino registered US$7.3 million.
MGM Springfield President Mike Mathis said that the numbers are certainly lower than what they had hoped to see in the initial months. “We are aggressively working on increasing these monthly numbers and we feel good about a lot of the programs that we’re putting into place. Each week we gain thousands of new customers to our loyalty database… We’re starting to see the benefits of that even in February and as we go into the new season,” he said.
