By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Missouri’s Gaming Commission is in St. Joseph, holding its regular meeting as well as visiting the St. Jo Frontier Casino.
Chair Mike Leara says the commission likes to get out and visit the state’s 13 casinos and then, the coronavirus pandemic hit.
“Until the pandemic, it was common for the Gaming Commission to tour the state, visit one or two of the 13 casinos every year,” Leara tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post in an interview at the St. Jo Frontier Casino. “And, the pandemic came and we didn’t have that opportunity. So, in 2021, we made it a point to visit a couple of the casinos and I think we’ll do about two a year.”
Leara says Missouri’s casinos have rebounded well from the drastic drop in revenue last year during the height of the pandemic.
Missouri casinos have generated $26.8 million for the Gaming Commission Fund this fiscal year after revenues fell to $19.7 million last year. In 2019, the state’s casinos generated nearly $27.7 million.
The St. Jo Frontier Casino is one of the smallest casinos in the state, along with four other casinos outside the Kansas City and St. Louis metropolitan areas: the Isle of Capri in Boonville; Mark Twain in La Grange, north of Hannibal; and the Century Casino in both Cape Girardeau and Caruthersville.
Leara says it’s important for the commission to get out of Jefferson City and tour the casinos.
“So that when we deal with issues that come before the commission, we’re familiar, we have a sense of how the business is run,” Leara says. “It’s not necessarily a due diligence, but of sorts, a due diligence; we’re on site, we understand and get a good feel for it. It’s quite valuable for the commissioners to be on site from time to time and get a feel for the business.”
That feel for the business varies from casino to casino, according to Leara.
“Each one of these casinos has different issues and successes that they deal with,” Leara says. “It’s very interesting to see the differences between them, which are vast.”
Leara says he is impressed with how the St. Jo Frontier Casino has bounced back, first from the flood of 2019 and then the coronavirus pandemic of 2020. The St. Jo Frontier Casino had gross receipts of $41.4 million, providing $8.7 million in gaming tax revenue, according to the Missouri Gaming Commission annual report.