First day’s slots wagers hits $5.6M Official: Bangor figures ‘right on the money’

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AUGUSTA – The roughly 9,000 people who visited Hollywood Slots Hotel and Raceway’s July 1 grand opening in Bangor racked up a total wager of $5.6 million, according to a report presented Thursday by Scott Woods, auditor for the Maine Gambling Control Board, at the board’s first meeting since Hollywood Slots moved into its new home.

That figure, likely an opening day anomaly, is deceptive because it includes winnings that are put back into the machines and because by state law, at least 89 percent of the total handle must be returned in the form of jackpots to players. Hollywood Slots currently pays out 93 percent.

Still, though, that’s well over the company’s best days – which Woods said typically ran in the $2 million range and fell on Fridays, Saturdays and occasionally on Sundays – in its interim facility in the former Miller’s Restaurant building.

The last day of gambling at the temporary facility, which had fewer than 500 slots, was Sunday, June 29. After an overnight move a few blocks up Main Street, the new complex opened for a private charity play event on the evening of Monday, June 30, before its official grand opening the next morning.

On its first day of business in its new $132 million permanent complex, which has 1,000 slots and an attached parking garage and soon-to-open hotel, the company’s net gaming, or after-tax, revenue amounted to $422,674, according to Woods’ spread sheet.

The first-day spike in numbers aside, revenue and total wager levels at Hollywood Slots’ new complex at 500 Main St. seem to be following pre-opening projections, Robert Welch, the gambling board’s executive director, told board members Thursday.

Welch said that before the new complex opened, he asked General Manager Jon Johnson for some predictions about revenues.

Welch said Johnson told him that despite having double the number of slots at the new facility, revenues likely would be only 50 percent higher.

So far, after a little more than a week in the company’s new digs, Johnson’s projections appear to be “right on the money,” Welch said and Woods later confirmed in his monthly financial update for gambling board members.

The company’s total wagers for Friday and Saturday July 4 and 5 were both in the $3 million range, up from the $2 million range in the interim facility, he said.

Woods said the total wager on the rest of the days has gone from the low $1 million range to the mid-$2 million range since the move, though the written version of his report did not cover the period beyond July 1.

Hollywood Slots pays a combination of taxes that amounts to 51 cents out of every dollar of its net revenue, Eric Schippers, spokesman for parent company Penn National Gaming Inc., said earlier.

Hollywood Slots must by law return at least 89 percent of its total wager to players in the form of winnings.

It then pays a 12.9 percent state tax on its “gross gaming revenue,” or actual revenue.

Of the balance, or “adjusted gaming revenue,” 39 percent goes to the state for distribution among 10 beneficiaries ranging from scholarship programs and the state’s harness racing industry to agricultural fairs, low-cost drug programs for the needy and the city of Bangor, its host municipality.

Bangor has received more than $3 million in revenue from Hollywood Slots dating back to November 2005.

In his report to the board, Welch said that Hollywood Slots’ move into the new facility went smoothly, despite a few lingering computer glitches, some caused by a lightning strike that knocked power out on Main Street in Bangor two days before the move.

The outage apparently affected Hollywood Slots’ internal monitoring system, though it did not affect the state’s central monitoring system, which is housed in Gardiner and operated by Scientific Games, which also oversees the state lottery system, Welch noted.

Welch also reported that the state has renewed its contract for services for problem gamblers.

“We still have not had anybody take advantage of this program,” Welch said.

State police officials assigned to the gambling control unit reported that so far there had been no major problems at the new complex.

“They seem to have a very nice [security] system in place, and they seem to have a very efficient security group in there to handle that size facility,” Lt. David Bowler said.

“I think at this point things are running very efficiently,” he said. “With the assistance of Director Welch, we’ll keep on top of any issues and report them directly to you,” he told board members.

In an update for the board, Johnson said the move up Main Street went relatively smoothly.

“In my opinion, it went very well – practically flawlessly,” he said. He noted, however, that the first day’s record attendance “really tested every system we have in place.”

Board Chairman George McHale of Orrington, who also heads the state’s harness racing commission, asked Johnson about Hollywood Slots’ efforts to segregate gaming and lounge patrons from minors.

Unlike the temporary facility, which was open only to those old enough to gamble and drink, the new complex has two restaurants and a hotel to which families are welcome.

Johnson said there was only one minor incident involving a family group that entered through the wrong doors.

“We caught up with them and had them go through the family entrance,” where IDs are checked by security personnel and where the visibly intoxicated are screened out, he said.

Also Thursday, Johnson provided an update on the company’s seven-story hotel, which he said is on track to begin opening this month. The plan, he said, is to open the hotel a floor at a time, from the ground floor up, in roughly two-week intervals.

Barring any snags, the hotel should be fully open by mid-September, he said.

The board’s next meeting is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 20, at the Augusta headquarters of the Maine Department of Public Safety.

dgagnon@bangordailynews.net

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