Revenue at the Casino Queen has fallen 4.6% since the same time last year. A spokesperson points to increased competition from video slot machines that are now allowed in bars and restaurants around Illinois.
The loss of twenty jobs is just a small part of a larger trend. Since 2007 spin palace quotes, when the current version of the Queen opened, employment there has fallen from about 1 blackjack online canada quintuplets,200 people to just 600. The job losses have followed drops in revenue. That hurts when a single business real money slots 123, the casino, is 38% of the city budget.
The Queen, as it is widely known, was the first casino to open in the core of the region in 1993. It was joined a year later by the President Casino, across the river, but maintained a strong share of the St. Louis gaming market well into the 2000s.
The deal mobile slots no deposit bonus usa, which closed Wednesday, includes the assumption of $31 million in existing debt. The plan, called an ESOP — employee stock ownership plan — financed the deal through $170 million in debt.
The company’s size is much larger than most ESOPs blackjack 9 brushless conversion, which typically have between 40 and 150 employees machine a sous jakub, said Loren Rodgers, executive director of the National Center for Employee Ownership, an Oakland, Calif.-based nonprofit membership and research group.
“It allows employees to become beneficial owners in the company free casino vegas,” Watson said. “The more successful the company is, the more value employees have individually in their retirement accounts.”
“It was a great run for our organization online slots real money canada census,” Jim Koman said in an interview Thursday. “We think this is a good transition, and the best way to keep the ideas we’ve built was to sell it back to employees.”
The ESOP will be managed by co-trustees Jeff Watson, the Casino Queen’s general manager and president, and Chief Financial Officer Robert Barrows.
But it has struggled since.
Earlier this year online roulette canada holidays, Argosy Alton owner Penn National Gaming bought Harrah’s in Maryland Heights, while Pinnacle announced a deal last week to buy Ameristar Casinos, which would give Pinnacle ownership of three of the region’s four biggest casinos.
Jim Koman told the Post-Dispatch that the ownership group received several inquiries from prospective buyers in recent years but opted to sell to the ESOP to preserve continuity in management. In 2006, Columbia Sussex reached a $200 million deal to buy the Queen, but the deal fell through in 2007.
That gradually changed, though, as competing operators Ameristar and Harrah’s beefed up their properties in St. Charles and Maryland Heights, respectively, and then Pinnacle Entertainment opened Lumière Place downtown in 2007 and River City Casino in south St. Louis County in 2010.