Downs’ 1st year tops expectations

CASINO GAMBLING About 6,000 people a day have bet almost $2 billion since gambling facility opened

PLAINS TWP. – A year into its first gambling venture outside of its Connecticut reservation, the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority has plenty to be happy about. About 6,000 gamblers a day have been streaming into the Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs and they’ve wagered nearly $2 billion since an interim casino opened on Nov. 14, 2006.

While reluctant to admit it in the early going, Downs CEO Bobby Soper now acknowledges that the action has been stronger than he bargained for.

“Our expectations have been exceeded,” he said Tuesday from the floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center, where he is attending the annual Global Gaming Expo trade show. “We’ve exceeded the numbers we anticipated.”

Those numbers include a “win” of $178 million. That’s the amount kept by the casino after paying out nearly 91 percent of wagers in jackpots. That profit is highly taxed – nearly $98 million worth – but the casino also makes money on its food and beverage sales, which are taxed at the same rate as in any other business.

But the always careful Soper isn’t yet ready to declare victory over still untested market forces. “It’s just too early to be overjoyed,” he said. The final judgment on the casino’s success will have to wait until a permanent gambling hall containing twice the present 1,200 slot machines opens next summer.

The Downs already has felt the effect of competition. Alone in the state when it opened and far removed from Philadelphia-area casinos that followed, the local casino saw its wagers drop by nearly 20 percent in the first two weeks after Mount Airy Casino Resort opened on Oct. 22.

But the novelty may be wearing off. After pulling in nearly $48 million in its first week of operation, wagering at Mount Airy dropped to $36.6 million during the week that ended Monday, according to state Gaming Control Board figures. Bets at the Downs, which had dropped from a weekly average near $40 million to $34 million the previous two weeks, picked up a bit to nearly $35 million last week.

Soper said there were few surprises in the project’s evolution, but one was the work force they found. He was pleased with “how quickly our team members caught on” and became familiar with how to operate a gaming facility even though few of them had experience.

“We were always optimistic there would be significant support,” he said, but the amount was unexpected.

One negative jolt has been inflation in the cost of building the permanent casino, which Soper now estimates at $180 million. “Before it was 150,” he said.

Since the tribal gaming authority purchased the Pocono Downs harness track for $280 million it has expanded its horizons with possible ventures in New York, Atlantic City and Massachusetts. Soper said the positive experience here may have encouraged the tribe to look at those opportunities.