US casino sees good early response

Getting back into operation by Nevada casino company Monarch is already making an impact on its bottom line, reports John Farahi, co-chairman and CEO, commenting on the company’s second quarter financial results.

Farahi said that the March lockdown had seen the company take all the necessary steps to minimise its expenditure and manage its finances to see it through the pandemic.

Now the company, that operates the Atlantis Casino Resort in Reno and the Black Hawk in Colorado, together totalling just over 2,000 slots and over 50 tables, has both venues back and reopened since early June. That initial reopening performance helped to generate revenue for the quarter of $15.2m, nearly all of it coming in June.

Monarch is constructing a new Black Hawk casino and hopes to see part of the work coming to fruition towards the end of this year and the site fully open early in 2021.

For the quarter the revenue of $15.2m was down 76 per cent and there was a loss of $4.3m compared with a profit of $9.2m the previous year. For the half-year there was a profit of $66.1m compared with $121.5m, a loss of 46 per cent.