Gambling board gets racino update

AUGUSTA – With the annual gambling industry slowdown now here, attendance at the Hollywood Slots at Bangor interim facility has evened out, General Manager Jon Johnson said Thursday during a meeting of the Maine Gambling Control Board.

“Business has leveled off. It’s not slow, but it has leveled off,” Johnson said.

“We’re seeing a nice level flow of business,” he continued in response to gambling board Chairman George McHale’s request for an update.

“It’s good to keep in mind that we’re probably in the slowest season you can be in here,” Johnson said. “November and December are very slow in the gambling industry” due to several major holidays during the two-month span that keep people busy with other activities.

To that end, Johnson said, the Bangor racino is working on a series of promotional activities. These will include cash giveaways, direct mailings to members of its Players Club and joint marketing with other local businesses, including hotels, restaurants and retailers.

“We’re looking to partner with as many [other local businesses] as we can because it is to our mutual benefit,” he said.

In his report, Johnson shared letters from members of the Bangor business community attributing some of their increased business to the presence of Hollywood Slots.

In a letter to Johnson, Ramada Inn General Manager Free Martin wrote that the slots have been bringing more people to the Odlin Road hotel.

“Our call volume, reservation business and walk-in business has increase dramatically. Normally, occupancy in November is very soft but so far we’re off to a great start. Most of this increase can be attributed to visitors coming to Bangor to frequent your establishment,” Martin wrote.

“We in the hospitality business have been looking for ways to increase business during the off season for many years and have struggled with that task. It appears your business is going to satisfy many of our needs,” he wrote, adding that in anticipation of the racino, the Ramada has nearly completed a $2 million upgrade and purchased a 15-passenger van to shuttle its guests to and from Hollywood Slots.

Asked about media reports that Hollywood Slots might team up with the Penobscot Indian Nation, which operates a high-stakes bingo palace on Indian Island, Johnson said, “That’s what I read also,” drawing chuckles from meeting attendees.

“We have not as yet talked to them,” Johnson said. He added, however, that he had seen some bingo marketing items that noted the presence of slots nearby. “So it appears that we have partnered up anyway, and that’s good.”

But not every business is benefiting.

Peter Martin, who recently sold John Martin’s Manor restaurant and off-track betting parlor to a Connecticut company called Autotote Enterprises, said Thursday that wagering at the Waterville wagering facility has dropped off by 20 percent since Hollywood Slots opened on Nov. 4.

The slots-related losses, he said, came on top of earlier ones blamed on the advent of Internet and telephone wagering and the popularity of games like Texas Hold ‘Em.

Martin attended Thursday’s meeting to respond to questions raised last month by board member Peter Danton of Saco.

Danton asked for details about how the 2 percent to stabilize the state’s five OTBs, including one operated by Hollywood’s parent company, Penn National, will be used.

The percentage was a legislative concession to the OTB operators, who were worried that the slots would cut into their profits.

On Thursday, Martin, who now serves as a legislative consultant to Autotote, said that if not for the financial support from OTBs, legalized in Maine in the early 1990s, the harness racing industry would have died out years ago.

Without harness racing, he added, there would not be a Bangor racino.

Martin said that about 70 percent of the harness racing purse fund in recent years came from OTBs.

William Hathaway of the Maine Harness Horsemen’s Association board, who has been involved in harness racing since 1980, agreed. He pegged the finance impact of OTBs on racing purses at $1.8 million in 2004, the most recent year for which data was available.

With the rules-making process largely finished and the Bangor racino up and running smoothly, there was little other official business on the board’s meeting agenda. The board reviewed monthly and weekly financial data, some of which now is being posted on the gambling control unit’s Web site.

In his report, Sgt. Robin Parker of the Maine State Police’s gambling control unit noted that he had processed 12 new racino-related license applications, bringing the total so far to 303.

He reported that there had been no major operational issues at the racino so far, according to the two inspectors housed there.