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Table games driving success of Pa. casinos

Drawing mostly younger players, they have been a revenue boon for the state, regulators said.

HARRISBURG - One year after table games opened in Pennsylvania casinos, there's one rule of thumb: If you want to know where the tables are, follow someone younger than 30.

Casino regulators call that simplistic. Table games such as poker and blackjack are enjoyed by everyone, they say. But while one does occasionally see white-haired women with big smiles and sharp eyes at the tables, they are not the norm.

The demographic for table games "always has and continues to skew a little male, and younger," says Wendy Hamilton, general manager of SugarHouse Casino in Philadelphia.

What that means is that casinos have a lot more new customers than they did a year ago - and a lot more money.

With the revenue from June yet to be tallied, table games have already raked in almost half a billion dollars across the state - including more than $64 million to the state coffers - without significantly depressing the revenue from slot machines.

Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course in East Hanover Township has brought in more than $31 million from table games, and revenue from slots is up 1.2 percent, at more than $229 million.

Table games have gone "very well," said Kevin O'Toole, executive director of the Gaming Control Board. "It's reached its expectations in terms of job growth and in terms of gross revenue and tax revenue."

Board spokesman Doug Harbach said table games had "allowed the Pennsylvania casinos to continue their growth by offering a full-service gaming experience."

Slot machines are still where the big money is. With more than 26,000 machines in 10 casinos around the state, slots gambling is on schedule to make well over $2.3 billion this year, with more than $790 million in tax revenue.

The slots, nevertheless, remain largely the province of the over-40 set, often well over.

The real story of Pennsylvania gambling is best illustrated in the southeast, where just four casinos generate nearly half the state's casino revenue - and 56 percent of table-games revenue.

The addition of table games made Pennsylvania fully competitive with Atlantic City, most easily seen in the plummeting casino revenue there.

New Jersey casino revenue dropped nearly 6 percent after the opening of slots in Pennsylvania, 7.6 percent again the next year, and 13.2 percent the year after that.

Pennsylvania's three highest-grossing casinos are Parx in Bensalem, Sands in Bethlehem, and Harrah's Chester. Right behind the big three in the east is the Rivers casino in Pittsburgh, consistently fourth as a revenue generator.

But the fifth-place berth really tells the story.

SugarHouse has the fewest tables in the state but ranks fifth in table revenue. It opened only in September, but it's a table-games powerhouse, bringing in more than $46 million in nine months.

Table games such as blackjack, roulette, and craps generate considerably more money than poker and are called "banking" tables. SugarHouse has nothing but banking tables.

In May, the 43 tables at SugarHouse brought in $6.6 million, more than the 86 banking tables at Harrah's and the 90 banking tables at Sands. That was $154,000 per table - the highest per-table return in the state by far.