Indiana Casino Revenue Above $200 Million For Second-Straight Month In April

Indiana’s 12 casinos combined to generate $205.1 million in adjusted gross revenue (casino win minus revenue and promotions) in April. These numbers represent declines of 5.9% month-over-month and 7.5% year-over-year.

Even with the drop, April showed a continuation of March’s momentum, marking the second-straight month that casinos in Indiana reported AGR above $200 million. Before March, they hadn’t hit that mark since July 2022.

Northern licensees dominate

The Indiana Gaming Commission’s April report breaks down gambling licensees into three sections: northern licensees, southern licensees and racinos.

Northern licensees, led by Hard Rock Casino Northern Indiana, accounted for more than 43% of the state’s AGR. All four of the northern licensees made more than $10 million in April.

• Hard Rock Casino Northern Indiana: $37.7 million
• Horseshoe Hammond: $24.1 million
• Ameristar: $17.1 million
• Blue Chip: $10.6 million

Indiana has six southern licensees, generally much smaller than their northern counterparts. Half of them did not reach $10 million in AGR last month.

• Caesars Southern Indiana: $21.4 million
• Bally’s Evansville: $14.7 million
• Hollywood Lawrenceburg: $13.3 million
• Belterra: $7.2 million
• French Lick Resort: $6 million
• Rising Star: $3.6 million

The final two properties fall into the racino category. In other words, these locations feature horse racing tracks in addition to a full casino offering. Both properties were among the top-five revenue generators for the month.

• Horseshoe Indianapolis: $30.1 million
• Harrah’s Hoosier Park: $19.2 million

These numbers correlate with properties’ proximities to major cities. Casinos in the Chicagoland area perform the best, though numerous options prevent even Hard Rock from claiming too much dominance.

Horseshoe Indianapolis sits second, unsurprisingly located nearby Indiana’s most populated city. Louisville’s proximity to Caesars Southern Indiana resulted in its $20-plus million AGR.

Meanwhile, the Cincinnati-area casinos showed lower profits. Unlike Chicago and Kentucky, Cincinnati has legal casino gaming. As such, Ohioans do not rely on Indiana’s casinos like other adjacent states.

Hard Rock nears $40 million win for second straight month

Hard Rock Northern Indiana has maintained the top spot among casinos in the Hoosier State for 19 straight months through April. The property opened in May 2021 and quickly rose to prominence, eventually becoming number one in October 2021 and staying there ever since.

Hard Rock’s win has surpassed $39 million in the last two months. No casino has hit $40 million since Horseshoe Hammond reported $40.1 million in March 2018. More impressively, it had no free play deductions, resulting in $40.1 million in AGR. Hard Rock reported $1.5 million in free play deductions in April.

Nonetheless, Hard Rock led all casinos in both slot and table games win. It was the only casino with an eight-figure table games win.

Top five slots winners:

• Hard Rock Northern Indiana: $27.3 million
• Horseshoe Indianapolis: $25.7 million
• Horseshoe Hammond: $20.2 million
• Harrah’s Hoosier Park: $17.4 million
• Caesars Southern Indiana: $16.3 million

Top five table games winners:

• Hard Rock Northern Indiana: $11.8 million
• Caesars Southern Indiana: $5.55 million
• Horseshoe Hammond: $5.53 million
• Horseshoe Indianapolis: $4.7 million
• Ameristar: $3.2 million

Casinos hold up better than sportsbooks

Indiana sportsbooks were hit harder than casinos in April, experiencing double-digit MoM and YoY drops. The monthly fall was predictable due to seasonality, but action still plunged by more than 10% from April 2022.

Casinos may be thankful that slots and table games do not suffer like sports through the seasons, but the two still have plenty of parallels.

Indiana’s YoY sports betting declines also come from maturity, including nearby states’ legalization. Much the same, its major casinos in the north look at the groundbreaking of Bally’s Chicago, set to begin next year.

In that sense, the writing is on the wall for future Chicago-area casinos to cut into Indiana casinos’ bottom lines.

But like sports betting, in-state casinos will still maintain enough demand to generate healthy profit lines. In the coming years, their slice of the casino pie will be smaller, but it will still be plenty large enough.