Year-over-year revenues at Northwest Indiana's five casinos inched up 1 percent in November, marking the first increase over the same month in the previous year for all the casinos combined since April.
"It's a good story," said Rob Brown, director of marketing for Horseshoe Hammond.
According to the November revenues report released by the Indiana Gaming Commission, the five casinos took in $73.57 million in November, compared to the $73.4 million they collected in November 2015.
Showing the greatest gain was Ameristar in East Chicago, which had $17.05 million in revenues last month, a gain of just under 5 percent from the $16.24 million it took in the same month a year earlier.
"We've experienced nice growth year over year. We continued to have the great growth in our table games that we've seen for quite a while," said Matthew Schuffert, vice president and general manager of Ameristar Casino.
Schuffert said he anticipated some year-over-year growth, considering the growth on the table side and the fact that last November 2015 had some bad weather.
Majestic Star I in Gary showed a gain of just under 3 percent, bringing in $7.1 million compared to $6.9 million.
Blue Chip Casino ended the month practically even, dipping to $12.69 million from $12.72 million, Horseshoe Hammond raked in $31.87 million compared to $32.60 million and Majestic Star II in Gary took in $4.86 million compared to $4.94 million.
Brown said while Horseshoe was down about 2 percent, he is encouraged by a strong December so far.
"We had a strong first week and I'm excited about the opening of The Eatery next week," Brown said.
He said construction work on The Eatery, the casino's new food hall, had some impact on the casino business, but added "there's a lot of excitement around its opening that should spill over into the casino business.
Brown said Illinois casinos in the Chicago market showed a 1.6 percent gain in year-over-year revenues.