Bally’s began the new year with fantastic results, especially when it came to the company’s temporary casino in Chicago. 

Fantastic results in the new year:

The casino, which is located at the Medinah Temple building in River North, Chicago, achieved the best results since its opening in September 2023.

According to the report, the casino in January surpassed the significant milestone of $10 million in gross gaming revenue. It is $6.8 million more than it was in September, but also 9.1% more than it was in December.

The main obstacle for all Chicago casinos, poor weather conditions, prevented almost all Chicago casinos from achieving month-over-month revenue growth. However, Bally’s Chicago casino recorded a significant increase in revenue compared to the previous month, making it the only casino in Illinois that achieved that.

Among various amenities, the casino also has free parking spaces for all vehicles and a shuttle service that is a great help in its rapid growth.

As CBS news report, Mark Wong, a Vice President and General Manager of the Chicago casino, commented: “Bally’s is pleased to announce the results of our phased opening of our Chicago property. January was our highest Gaming Revenue month to date, and we continue to see strong visitor counts. More customers are taking advantage of our free parking and free shuttle service, which continues to grow in popularity. We look forward to implementing valet parking, introducing more shuttle and bus routes, and creating new VIP areas to meet customer demands.”

Since the opening of the temporary casino, its gross gaming revenue on a monthly basis has increased from $6.8 million to an impressive $10.8 million. On top of that, the casino became the one with the second-highest number of admissions in the whole state, with over 88.000 admissions.

Expectations not met:

Bally’s new casino currently has over 620 employees, and the company one more time proved that it takes care of people and that diversity matters, so 82% of the employees are minorities, more than 50% are women, and 63% are residents of Chicago, so the area greatly benefited from opening this property.

The first three months of operations were hard, though. The profit in the first three months of operations was lower than the company expected. According to the Illinois Gaming Board, the casino achieved a profit of $30 million, and the city earned $3.1 million of that amount in three months. However, the city hoped that its earnings would be $12.8 million, so the earnings were $9.7 million less than it was expected. The earnings were supposed to fund the city’s police and fire pensions.

The construction of the permanent site is about to begin later in 2024. The casino, which will be located in River West, is scheduled to open in 2026 if everything goes as planned.