Analysis claims Cape Girardeau best site for casino, but another study has different findings

Ameristar Casinos Inc. released a second, more detailed market analysis Tuesday that claims Cape Girardeau is the best location for a new gaming facility within the state, while the company that wants to build a casino in St. Louis has released its own study that takes issue with those findings.

Ameristar announced its results of what it calls an updated analysis of the four locations for the 13th Missouri casino license. The new analysis shows that Cape Girardeau remains the best site because of the amount of incremental, or added, gaming and tax revenue it will produce, said Ameristar spokesman Troy Stremming, who is based in Kansas City, Mo.

Meanwhile, the developers of Casino Celebration in St. Louis released a study it commissioned two University of Missouri St. Louis economics professors to do that basically makes the same claims as Ameristar's study -- except for their casino.

"There seems to be some contradictory information," Cape Girardeau Mayor Harry Rediger said. "I just feel that we know we are economically by far the best site. What the actual numbers are is up for further study."

The Ameristar study supports Rediger's beliefs. It says Cape Girardeau would generate twice the amount of incremental tax revenue than would be generated by a North St. Louis-area casino and four times more than would be generated by a casino in Sugar Creek, which is near Kansas City, Stremming said.

The study, which was done by Ameristar's in-house analysts, forecast gross revenue for a new Cape Girardeau facility at $88.7 million annually, of which Stremming said "virtually none" would be "cannibalized" from existing Missouri casinos.

The Ameristar study says that the other three proposals would derive significant amounts of their revenue from other casinos within Missouri: Sugar Creek at 81 percent, St. Louis at 72 percent and the North St. Louis County proposal at 66 percent.

"In other words, those markets are saturated," Stremming said.

And this study isn't simply trying to keep another casino from markets where Ameristar does business, Stremming said. Ameristar has casinos in St. Charles and Kansas City.

"We're not opposed to a license being issued for another casino in Missouri," he said. "We're opposed to a license being issued to a market that's already saturated."

The Missouri Gaming Commission asked for existing and potential casinos to perform economic impact studies. The commission has also asked the Missouri Department of Economic Development to perform such a study, which is expected to be complete by the end of October.

But the Casino Celebrations study, which wants to build a casino in St. Louis, says its location at the old Chain of Rocks bridge in north St. Louis would earn the most money for Missouri.

According to that study, Cape Girardeau would generate $61.6 million of new tax revenue, while its St. Louis casino would generate $83.4 million in new tax dollars.

Greg Smith, the Clayton, Mo., attorney for Casino Celebrations, said its study was done independently and not by in-house analysts. He also said that the two economics professors were hired in the past by the Missouri Gaming Commission to do similar studies.

"We wanted to determine if the St. Louis market suffers from saturation that is alleged in the Ameristar study," Smith said. "Our study shows that the St. Louis market still has room to grow."

Isle of Capri, which is proposing to build a $125 million casino in Cape Girardeau, does not comment on competitor studies, said Isle spokeswoman Jill Haynes.

But the campaign committees lobbying for and against had different takes on such studies.

"I don't care about any of these studies," said Doug Austin, who is leading the effort to defeat the ballot issue on Nov. 2. "These are studies done by the gambling industry, and you know already they paint casinos in a favorable light. I have no interest in those studies."

Danny Essner, who is treasurer of Yes For Gaming and a Cape Girardeau banker, said the studies are important.

"They're critical because the Missouri Gaming Commission is going to look at them," he said. "But really what we have to focus on is the vote. That's the first step. We'll worry about the other stuff later."

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