Kansas City played host last month to 72 visiting basketball teams in four collegiate tournaments spread over 17 days. For the month, area casinos raked in $64.9 million — better than $2 million a day.
That was shy of the $66.8 million mark set in March 2007, but still impressive considering Leap Year took away Feb. 29, a busy Friday night that otherwise would have been March 1.
The big month continued a rebound this year from sluggish 2007, when annual revenue flattened or fell at three of the area’s four gambling boats.
But Tom Burke, the general manager at the Argosy Casino Hotel & Spa in Riverside, cautioned that the market’s failure to top revenue from March 2007 — when no Big 12 tournament was in town —raised a red flag.
Tim Wilmott, the president of Argosy’s parent company, Penn National Gaming, also cited growing fears of recession, smoking bans and heightened competition, all of which have eroded revenue in other gambling markets and now appear headed to Kansas City.
“We have a very vibrant business here,” said Wilmott. “But 2008 might be the best year we see here for a number of years.”
March was a record-setter for the Missouri Lottery and for the Argosy, where revenue topped $17 million for the first time. The casino also set a property record for turnstile admissions at 477,854.
But Burke said he did not think basketball had much to do with Argosy’s record month.
“The hotel has really rounded out our product,” Burke said of the casino’s 258-room hotel, spa and expanded meeting facilities, which opened a year ago and are pumping up typically slow weekday business.
“During the week we’re continuing to grow,” he said. “People will come in for two days of meetings. At night they’ll have dinner, and then we’ll see them on the (casino) floor.”
As for basketball fans who became casino customers when their favorite teams weren’t playing, “we didn’t see a lot of it here,” Burke said.
That might be because Isle of Capri Casino, the nearest gambling boat to the Sprint Center, wooed Big 12 fans by the busload with free shuttles.
“It was a real opportunity for us,” said Mike Tamburelli, Isle of Capri’s general manager. “We saw a lot of Kansas jerseys. … We saw a lot of people in the off times for the tournament.”
Those shuttle-bus runs helped pad Isle’s turnstile count to 274,009, its best performance in nearly a year.
Meanwhile the Missouri Lottery topped its statewide record in March with sales of $96.8 million.
Spokeswoman Susan Goedde said March presented a perfect storm of circumstances that hyped sales. They included a $276 million Powerball jackpot won at midmonth and a near-record $59.9 million in scratcher ticket sales, fueled by player enthusiasm for a new $20 game that offers 20 top prizes of $1 million or more.
“The two together made a combination to fuel our best sales month ever,” Goedde said.
March traditionally is one of the casino industry’s biggest months. Four of the Kansas City market’s top six months were March 2005-08.
Besides the advent of warm weather and the arrival of some tax refund checks, “March is kind of a shoulder month,” said Burke. “It’s not yet warm enough for street festivals and working in the yard, but it’s time to get out and shake off the winter, if the weather is good.
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