Officials at Dania Casino and Jai-Alai in Broward County, Florida, which opened February 20, recently announced the facility will close for one year on October 15, following a 0 million renovation. The 300 current employees have received 60-day layoff notices. Officials said the expanded casino will employ up to 600 people when it reopens.
John Lockwood, the casino’s attorney, said, “We just can’t do a full construction while it’s still open to the general public. It’s more about speeding up our own investment in the project and delivering a finished product six to eight months ahead of previous plans.”
Designed to make Dania Casino more competitive with four other Broward casinos located with a 15-minute drive, the upgrade will include bars, restaurants and an expanded gaming floor with slots and poker, plus a hotel, retail and a marina. Since it opened six months ago, revenues have fallen will below the expectations of the Casino Club Group, owned by four Argentine businessmen with minority partners from South Florida.
But, Lockwood said, “the revenue is not the reason for interrupting the operation.” Founded in 1992, the group operates 27 casinos with 2,200 employees, making it Latin America’s largest chain of casinos and slot machines.
Boyd Gaming, Dania Casino’s previous owner, delayed installing slot machines due to the state tax on slots that started dropped to 35 percent from 50 percent. In 2011, a local investment group bought the property from Boyd could not make the payments. The Argentine owners purchased Dania Casino and Jai-Alai for $65.5 million in 2013 and opened about one-quarter of the property in February, which they called “Phase Zero,” spending about $15 million to gut the former poker and simulcast areas and put in two floors of slots.
The casino’s slots take in about $1 million per month, which is a small percentage of the revenue generated at the nearby Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino and the Seminole Classic Casino, both in Hollywood. Mardi Gras Casino and Gulfstream Park, both in Hallandale Beach, take in about $4 million a month. Dania Casino’s 543 slots take in an average of $65 a day; Mardi Gras’s 990 slots bring in $139 and Gulfstream’s 874 take in $150. For the fiscal year ending June 30, Florida’s eight racinos took in an average of $176 per machine.
Florida Chief Economist Amy Baker, projecting how much gambling tax revenue would be available for the new state budget, said Dania
Casino’s numbers are ” the lowest we’ve ever seen, by far. Usually casinos will start strong and taper off. They don’t have much room to drop.”
Dania Beach Mayor Walter Duke said he has confidence in Dania Casino’s owners. “By and large, we view them as our partners, and we all have a stake in our city to do well. They’re in the gaming industry and have that expertise. So far, since acquiring the asset, they’ve done everything they’ve said they’d do,” Duke said.
In order to meet state parimutuel requirements for maintaining a gambling license, Dania’s jai-alai games will be played in a shortened schedule ending December 30.
