Elgin casino will lose half-million visitors
Elgin’s Grand Victoria riverboat casino will lose more than 500,000 potential visitors according to a Huff-model trade area analysis put together by Elgin blogger Geognerd. The new Des Plaines casino, Illinois’s 10th–and perhaps last–casino will severely cannibalize Grand Victoria revenues:
The new Des Plaines casino has a large potential market, larger than any other casino in the area…the Grand Victoria would lose 400,000 potential visitors and the Hollywood about 118,000 visitors from their >20% trade areas. The Horseshoe Casino would have 1,108,197 fewer potential visitors in its >20% trade area.
I did one more query to see which census blocks “flip-flopped.†In other words, which blocks had a greater than 20% probability of going to an existing casino, then had a greater than 20% probability of going to Des Plaines. These “flip-flop†blocks would be definite losses of potential visitors for the area’s casinos. These areas went from being highly likely to visit an existing casino to being highly likely to visit a new Des Plaines casino.
Grand Victoria 556252
Hollywood 55012
Empress 0
Harrah’s Joliet 0
Horseshoe 1393744
Potawatomi 0
Ameristar 0
According to the table above, over a half-million people would switch from being potential Grand Victoria visitors to being potential Des Plaines visitors.
This could hardly come at a worse time for Elgin, since the economic recession means that tax and other revenues will also be falling.
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So, the casino will go from being vastly profitable to profitable. Sooner or later, it was bound to happen. Does anyone really think that the state would never expand?
Perhaps it is time for the casino and the city to start actually marketing themselves as a destination. The Grand Victoria has rested on its monopoly for too long. The marketing that is done is minimal.
To its credit, the city has long held the line in using casino proceeds in financing the day-to-day operations, so whatever they still reap will still be gravy. Just not so much.
Besides, once that insipid governor is gone, don’t think that King Richard of Chicago won’t eventually get his mega-casino. Then everyone else will lose.
I’d be more concerned about the bankrupt developers leaving Downtown Elgin half-finished than losing a share of the casino business.
Mind you, this is not to question why Des Plaines, a generally profitable and stable community, was chosen over Waukegan, an rundown town much like Aurora and Elgin once were. Given recent state-level events, one wonders how much the governor was paid by someone in Des Plaines.
I think they chose Des Plaines purely because they expect to make the most money at that location. As Geognerd’s analysis shows, the market area for a Des Plaines casino is the largest of all the existing casinos, and would also be larger than a Waukegan casino. They could have put it in Rosemont, but it would not have looked good, so Des Plaines became the logical place.
Not sure about the prospects for a Chicago casino, but if they really want to maximize Illinois gaming revenues, they will allow the Rosemont/Des Plaines region to become the Atlantic City (or Biloxi or whatever) of the Midwest. I’m sure Rosemont would love that.
Elgin though seems to have a love-hate relationship with casino gambling. They love the money, but they’re embarrassed by the presence of a huge gambling enterprise in the community, and when the opportunity to expand gaming in Elgin was mooted, city leaders immediately shot it down.
try to stop it from happening…. we dont need another one so close by. the pie keeps getting cut. it does not make sense. can anyone help stop the des plaines casino from happening? it really needs to be in a different area.