By Mike Ricketts, Times-Mail
miker@tmnews.com
FRENCH LICK - The Indiana Gaming Commission report for October has been released, and the numbers for the French Lick Resort Casino are similar to September in casino entries, with 276 more in October. The casino's cut from slots and table games, however, dipped a bit in October from September.
In October, the casino registered 127,393 passages onto the gaming floor compared to 127,117 in September. And for October, the casino collected $7.38 million from slot machines compared to $7.55 million in September. And the casino raked $1.09 million off the tables in October compared to $1.47 million in September.
And while those numbers are down from the previous month, despite more visitors, Ed Feigenbaum, publisher of Indiana Insight and somebody who has followed the casino market in Indiana since before the first boat floated, said it's hard to read much into the numbers.
October, he added, is a bad month for casinos in Indiana. This particular October saw one of the largest northern casinos (Horseshoe) lose almost $900,000 on table games.
Now into November - the first full month the French Lick casino was open last year - Feigenbaum said it will be important when comparing this year's numbers to last year's numbers to watch for steady increases.
"What you should be looking for in the November numbers is improvement; to see some kind of progress from year to year," Feigenbaum said. "But it's a little more difficult for their situation. For that property, the winter months are not going to be particularly consistent and they are not going to be particularly telling - one bad month of winter roads could really hurt things. It will be very important to look past the numbers."
In addition to weather being a hindrance, he also said French Lick casino officials won't likely have the level of marketing in major metropolitan areas this year as they had for the grand opening.
But, he added, that the casino should benefit from the fact that it is new enough that some interested gamblers haven't visited.
"In a sense, you are still looking at a first generation of visitors to French Lick; there are still a lot of people who haven't made it down there or up there - whatever being the case - that really want to visit," he said. "And (resort/casino Chief Operating Officer) Chris Leininger's job is going to be to give those a positive enough gaming experience that they will want to come back for the gaming, or for whatever else might be available in the county."
French Lick Casino officials have stressed the importance of the gaming "boat" in The Valley being just one element to a "resort destination," a place where people come for more than the gambling.
And Feigenbaum agrees that the addition of other tourist draws - including the Pete Dye Golf Course in the next year to 18 months as part of the casino resort and a privately owned water park - will help draw visitors in search of a "resort destination" to the tucked-away southern Indiana community.
The peak tourism season, however, won't begin again until late spring and carry through late summer.
But even during those months, Feigenbaum warned, the numbers from the monthly Indiana Gaming Commission reports can have fairly large increases or decreases that might not easily be explained.
Also in the October numbers:
• French Lick Resort Casino paid $2.2 million in taxes. (Argosy paid $12.7 million in taxes, the most, and Casino Aztar paid $2 million, the least.
• Other than in the poker room, the least amount of money was played on roulette, $341,251. (The most popular table game was black jack, where $3.1 million was put into play)
• There was $144,600 put into the $100 slots, of which the casino kept $34,000.
• In French Lick, there was $87 million put into slot machines vs. $407 million at Argosy (the most in Indiana casinos for the month).