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Improvements under way at Casino Aztar - some subtle, some showy - are intended to position the Evansville riverboat casino against impending competition from a new casino at French Lick, Ind., and elsewhere.
"We have new competition coming on line, and we need to remain competitive," said Jim Brown, president and general manager of Casino Aztar.
The latest additions to the mix of games on the riverboat's gaming floor are penny slot machines. Players can wager as little as 1 cent, up to several dollars, per pull (though they cash out using a ticket.)
Brown said penny slots are the latest product trend in the gaming industry - last year it was poker - and that more than 100 penny machines have joined about 1,400 slots at Aztar, playable in various denominations.
"You can play whatever amount you can play, rather than have a threshold of a dollar minimum," he said.
Bigger changes are in store adjacent to the riverboat.
Construction is progressing on the $40 million entertainment complex - called "The District at Casino Aztar" - that will have the first of a series of grand openings next month. It will feature Jillian's Billiard Club (a sports attraction with video games, billiards and bowling), the Ri Ra Irish Pub and Restaurant, and a one-acre park with fountain, Brown said.
Anchoring that will be a 100-room "boutique" hotel, featuring two plasma TVs per room, smoked-glass showers, Wi-Fi and iPod plug-ins, and panoramic river views from five suites. The still-unnamed hotel and "ultralounge" is scheduled to open in mid-December, Brown said.
Last year, Casino Aztar announced a second phase of its expansion-improvement project for 2007, to include a dining and entertainment venue. The second phase plans, however, are on hold for now while Aztar's new owner, Columbia Sussex Corp. of Fort Mitchell, Ky., reviews them.
Columbia Sussex purchased Phoenix-based Aztar Corp. in June for $2.75 billion.
The combination of gambling and nongambling attractions and restaurants, intended to draw both out-of-town tourists and local customers, is something of a preemptive strike by Aztar, which recently
celebrated its 10th anniversary in Evansville.
After all, less than two hours away, a new casino - the state's 11th - is taking shape in French Lick, Ind.
The $382 million casino project to renovate the historical French Lick Springs Resort Hotel and nearby West Baden Springs Hotel - and create badly needed jobs in Orange County, Ind. - is scheduled to open in November, despite an ongoing lawsuit between its two developers.
A major expansion also is planned at the Caesars Indiana casino in Harrison County, Ind.; and Harrah's in Metropolis, Ill. - across the Ohio River from Paducah, Ky. - just opened a new 240-room hotel. In short, there is intense jockeying for gambling customers.
"We're trying to keep up with the competition and in some cases get ahead of the competition," Brown said.
Positioning itself as a historical destination with its spas and golf courses, the French Lick Resort Casino lends itself to niche markets, such as honeymooners, said its vice president of hospitality, Jerry Gleason.
"We certainly will be competing for the same gaming dollars," Gleason said. "In order for us to be successful, we have to have a combination of those day-tripper gamers, as well as the overnighters and multiple-night stays, and that is what our marketing is targeting."
But the legislator who led the push for a casino license for Orange County, state Rep. Jerry Denbo, doesn't think French Lick and Casino Aztar are necessarily going after the same clientele.
"Naturally, there's some overlap there," said Denbo, D-French Lick. But his community's resort is really competing for tourists who would otherwise take vacations in Gatlinburg, Tenn., Orlando, Fla., or Biloxi, Miss., he said.
It's not necessarily a zero-sum game for casinos, said a prominent state economist. Given French Lick's historical roots as a resort town, it's more of a destination draw, as opposed to Evansville, the state's third-largest metropolitan area.
"You're talking about a different audience, to some extent," said Patrick Barkey, director of economic and policy studies at the Miller College of Business at Ball State University.
Barkey said there is some "leverage and synergy" in developing riverfront attractions that appeal to a variety of tastes near a casino. "It's not all from gambling; it's the aura, the excitement, the fact that there's now a district you can go to," Barkey said.
That can have an economic ripple effect in luring convention business - and bringing visitors to town who otherwise wouldn't spend money in the community, he said.
Yet told of the deployment of penny slots at Casino Aztar, Barkey was skeptical. He views penny slots as a tool for grooming nongamblers (such as spouses of gamblers) into gamblers themselves.
"It's a little like giving out candy cigarettes," Barkey contended. "You're taking people who otherwise never dreamed of standing in front of a slot machine, and giving them a toy experience and training them (in the concept of) putting real money into a slot machine," he said.
But Brown, the president of Casino Aztar, denied that penny slots are intended to condition customers into wagering larger amounts.
"No, I don't think that's it at all. The 'pennies' are just hot right now," he said. "Penny slots are not driving the market; they are a component in a variety of casino games we offer."
Donald Vowels, a member of the Indiana Gaming Commission from Evansville, described penny slots as either an entree into gambling or a harmless diversion.
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