In casino revenues, a battle over Maine slot dominance

The latest revenue figures from Maine’s two casinos show the gaming pie keeps getting bigger, up another 2 percent after growing at less than 1 percent in 2014.

Hollywood Casino’s net revenue was down slightly in 2015 as Oxford Casino’s rose again, up to $76.6 million.

As other casinos try to enter the market in Maine, the current operators have raised concern about any new casinos simply taking up a new share of a finite pie.

It’s impossible from the state revenue data to analyze whether a new location in the state would tap a new market for slot machine gaming, but between the markets for Oxford and Bangor the numbers suggest some overlap in the market for slot gaming.

Combined slot machine revenue hit $105.6 million in 2013 and stayed at about that level in 2014 and 2015, with Oxford slowly growing its share of that amount. Meanwhile, the appetite for lower-grossing table games has continued to grow in each year since.

And, as reporter Nick McCrea wrote today, this year could be a critical one for those casinos as others give another shot at entering the market.

That’s where I’ll put a question out to comments: Do you think the state should add another casino? If so, where and why? And if not, why not?

Darren Fishell

About Darren Fishell

Darren is a Portland-based reporter for the Bangor Daily News writing about the Maine economy and business. He's interested in putting economic data in context and finding the stories behind the numbers.