Detroit could lose $50m from extended casino closures

The city of Detroit is set to lose around $50m if current casino closures continue into Spring, according to the city’s chief financial officer Dave Massaron.

Speaking to Detroit’s council, Massaron said he expects the city to lose $10m from its current three-week pause, which has been introduced as a result of rising numbers of COVID-19 cases in the region.

Casinos have been forced to once again close their doors as a result of the new measures, which could be extended past the initial three-week period if cases continue to rise.

Although they were permitted to reopen following the city’s first lockdown in August, Detroit’s three casinos have continued to suffer from capacity limitations.

For the month of October, the city’s casinos saw revenue of $101.4m. For the year-to-October, revenue was down 54% in comparison with last year, totalling $550m for the first 10 months of the year.

In turn, the decline in revenue has impacted the amount of taxes paid by Detroit’s casinos. The casinos paid $7.6m to the State of Michigan over the course of October, in comparison to $9.4m for the same month in 2019.

In order to mitigate the losses imposed by casino closures, Massaron has urged government members to consider cost saving measures.

“Every member of council, every department head, every independent department head, should understand we have an additional revenue shortfall and extremely tight environment and we should be looking at all of our own staffs and expenditures – contract or otherwise – to drive savings,” he said.

Owain Flanders

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