Border War Has Kansas Cutting Into Missouri Revenue

Missouri casinos owned a monopoly on gaming revenue for a long time, but now casinos in the state are watching their profit margins slip. Competition from new gaming facilities in Kansas are a cause for concern in Missouri as revenue numbers dropped in 2012.

Competition is getting fierce within the gaming industry, and Kansas City had been an area that Missouri casinos could count on over the past few years when it came to gaming revenue. In 2012, a new casino in Kansas City, at the Kansas Speedway, started cutting into the profit for Missouri casinos.

For the year, Missouri casinos saw their gaming revenue drop by two percent. While that may not seem like a large margin, it is enough to have Missouri regulators trying to figure out where the losses came from.

Upon examination, regulators learned that revenue in the Kansas City casino market rose by nearly 10%. That would seem like good news for Missouri, until reading further into the figures. The growth in Kansas City was tied to the opening of Hollywood Casino, at the speedway.

While revenue was down at Missouri casinos, it still totaled $1.795 billion in 2012. The year previous saw a revenue figure of $1.806 billion.

Missouri and Kansas are both seeing competition rise from other states. The latest state to consider new casinos is Illinois, although Governor Pat Quinn has vetoed several pieces of legislation relating to casino expansion. Quinn has not been completely opposed to new casinos in his state, only the scope of which lawmakers were attempting to expand the industry.

While midwestern states are expanding slowly, gaming expansion in the northeast has been rampant, with several states adding new casinos in the past year. Out West, California and Nevada continue to be the leaders in the casino industry.

Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware have gone as far as to regulate online gambling. All three states are expected to have online casinos up and running by the end of the year.