Opened in 2005 in Burlington, Iowa, Great River Entertainment has grown to include Catfish Bend Casino, Fun City and Pzazz, offering a water park, hotels, a spa, convention center, restaurants and more. The company has 600 employees. General Manager Rob Higgins said, “It’s not necessarily one thing that brings everybody here. The key to it in our mind is that it is a matter of making everything flow together and work together, so they all kind of feed off of each other.”
Chief Executive Officer Gary Hoyer added the entertainment complex offers southeast Iowa resident choices typically found in larger cities. He said Catfish Bend Casino attracts 600,000 visitors annually, and more than 1 million people visit the complex each year. He said 80 percent of visitors come from within a 50-mile radius of Burlington.
Hoyer said if sports betting becomes legal, Catfish Bend Casino has plans to create a new sports betting facility with big screen TVs in a sports bar atmosphere. “If sports betting becomes the case, then yeah, we would definitely be interested in trying to pursue that as we move forward. No question about it,” Hoyer said.
Higgins added, “Sports betting is appealing to our company not only from a revenue standpoint, but it will end up bringing a different type of person to the facility. It will bring probably a younger type person on a regular basis, and it also brings more people to the facility.”
Hoyer said attracting millennials continues to challenge the industry. He stated that generation has grown up playing video games “based on real-time skill level” and they don’t care for slot machines and other games of chance. “The industry is working to develop slot machines that include skill components that impact the odds and game results to try to make the experience similar to a video game,” he said.
