Hollywood Slots marks one-year anniversary

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BANGOR – One year ago today, hundreds of Mainers lined up outside the former Miller’s Restaurant on Main Street for a glimpse of the state’s first slots facility, which made its debut with a Tinsel Town-style grand opening that featured celebrity look-alikes, searchlights and champagne.

The first patrons of Hollywood Slots at Bangor, which has 475 slot machines, began arriving four hours before the 10 a.m. grand opening, forming a line that stretched from the facility’s main entrance to the sidewalk along the Main Street side of the building.

Fast-forward one year, and the patrons still are coming in droves. And the money continues to pour into not only the slots, but also into city and state coffers.

The facility’s overflow parking area where the former Main Street Inn once stood consistently fills up on weekends and some weekdays. Many of those patrons are arriving by the busload from such places as Portland, Lewiston and Freeport.

“My assessment of how it’s gone in the first year is that, by any measure you would choose, it’s been a great success,” Hollywood Slots General Manager Jon Johnson said Friday.

City Manager Edward Barrett agreed.

“So far, everything is going very well,” he said. “Most of what we can see and document to date appears to be positive.”

Since Hollywood Slots opened in November, hotel occupancy has increased, traffic is up at local restaurants and at the Bangor Mall, and people from all parts of the state are heading for Bangor to play slots, he said.

At the end of October, the facility’s “head count” was approaching 800,000 visits. The monthly wagering handle, or “coin in,” also continues to grow at a steady rate.

Financial data maintained by the Maine Gambling Control Board show that the 475 slot machines that went on line last year have generated a gross handle of more than $520 million as of the end of October, though that figure is deceptive because, by state law, 89 percent of the total handle must be returned in the form of jackpots to players.

Penn now pays out 93 percent, prompting one member of the gambling control board to quip that Penn National “has the loosest slots in town.”

The total handle figure includes winnings that are put back into the machines. In addition, the state takes 51 cents in the form of taxes out of every dollar wagered.

According to the state’s slots law, Hollywood Slots is required to send the state 1 percent of its gross handle and 39 percent of its income after payout to players.

As of the end of October, the state had collected more than $22.5 million in taxes from the slots.

As host city, Bangor to date has received more than $1.3 million from the slots, a portion of which is being used to recover costs connected to locating the racino here, such as legal and lobbying costs – and to put toward a replacement for the city’s aging auditorium and civic center.

Between 1,400 and 1,600 patrons go to the facility each weekday, and on weekends, the number jumps to 2,500 to 2,700, Amy Kenney, Hollywood Slots’ manager of marketing and public relations, said this week.

Orrington broadcaster George McHale, who chairs the Maine Gambling Control Board as well as the state’s harness racing commission, credits the facility’s trouble-free first year to preparation and leadership from the top.

“Things are going quite well,” he said. “Our problems have been minimal, almost nonexistent.

“Well, I’m an old-fashioned kind of guy,” he said this week. “I believe that if you plan well and do your homework – and I believe we did – it all starts with [Gov. John Baldacci setting up the oversight system].

“I would say the racino is the most monitored business activity in the state, by far,” McHale said, citing such security measures as criminal background and credit checks for employees, surveillance cameras spread throughout the racino and the two state inspectors posted on site.

“It’s probably one of the most scrutinized operations in the state,” he said.

“I think the other factor is that Penn National did what they said they would do,” McHale said.

That, McHale said, bodes well for the future.

“I don’t think we’re going to see any major problems. They would have developed by now,” he said.

Johnson concurred. “We’re very proud of the operation,” he said, adding, “Now this isn’t news, but we haven’t created any problems [in the community]. There hasn’t been a crime wave, we don’t have prostitutes – none of that has happened.”

In a recent report to the Legislature, Johnson said the facility now employs 130 people, 120 of them full-time with benefits. All but a few were hired locally. Of those jobs, three are senior property executives making more than $100,000, nine are department heads earning an average salary of $53,000, and 126 are workers making an hourly rate of $9.30, with half of those also earning tips averaging $2.55 an hour.

“We have paid over $18 million in gaming taxes that support programs like prescription drugs for the elderly, that provide scholarships for [students enrolled in the state’s university and community college systems],” he said.

“Almost half the tax money we pay goes to support harness racing,” he said.

“If you think about it, over a year ago harness racing was kind of hanging by a thread,” he said. “I think that has turned around dramatically.”

Last year, before the slots arrived, about $520,000 was available statewide for harness racing purses, Johnson noted. The slots’ infusion of cash to the struggling industry has more than doubled that to $1.2 million. Not only did the average purse grow, so did the number of races at the state’s commercial harness racing tracks at Bangor and Scarborough.

In addition, significant improvements have been made to the grandstand, paddock and other parts of Bangor Raceway. Parent company Penn National Gaming Inc. expected to invest about $1 million in the racetrack by the end of the year.

Parent company Penn National’s plans call for housing up to 1,500 of the gaming machines in a brand-new facility to be built across Main Street from Bass Park, on land now occupied by the two hotels.

“We are very heavily involved now in the planning process,” Johnson said.

The $90 million complex, slated to open in mid-2008, will include a 1,500-car parking garage, a new off-track betting facility, restaurant space and a retail shop, among other things. It also eventually could include a seven-level hotel overlooking the Penobscot River, once Hollywood Slots’ annual adjusted gross revenues hit the $120 million mark.