Plainridge Casino Nets $18 Million In First Full Month

WAMC Northeast Public Radio | By Paul Tuthill

Published August 17, 2015 at 7:30 PM EDT

The first casino in Massachusetts netted $18 million in its first full month in business.

People gambled $181 million at the Plainridge Park Casino in July, according to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. The casino kept $18 million. Over a full year it works out to $217 million in gross gaming revenue, which would be more than the state’s full-year projection of $200 million.

Casino industry expert Clyde Barrow said Plainridge Park had a spectacular opening.

" I think everybody knew there was demand for such a facility, but I don't think anyone anticipated it would be this dramatic," he said.

The state’s first-month revenue from the new casino is $8.9 million, with $7.3 million of that earmarked for local aid.

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Paul Tuthill

Paul Tuthill is WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief. He’s been covering news, everything from politics and government corruption to natural disasters and the arts, in western Massachusetts since 2007. Before joining WAMC, Paul was a reporter and anchor at WRKO in Boston. He was news director for more than a decade at WTAG in Worcester. Paul has won more than two dozen Associated Press Broadcast Awards. He won an Edward R. Murrow award for reporting on veterans’ healthcare for WAMC in 2011. Born and raised in western New York, Paul did his first radio reporting while he was a student at the University of Rochester.

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