Coast casinos roll out best year since 2008

2015 was the best year for South Mississippi casinos since 2008.

The Dec. 9 opening of Scarlet Pearl Casino in D'Iberville helped push Coast casinos to $1.14 billion in gross casino revenue for the year, squeaking revenue past the 2009 total of $1.11 billion.

It was a 6 percent annual improvement over the $1.08 billion won in 2014.

The river casinos had their worst year since 1994, when the first casinos opened in that area. For the second year, revenues slipped below $1 billion to $954.0 million. That is 3.5 percent below 2014.

The Coast's strong performance helped raise Mississippi's total casino revenue to $2.07 billion, or 1.4 percent above 2014 levels.

Twice in 2015, the Coast casino revenue topped $100 million, the first time that had happened since 2009.

December is typically a strong month for the Coast casinos. Scarlet Pearl's opening raised the money won to $90.5 million from $84.6 million a year ago, according to Wednesday's report from the state Department of Revenue.

The Mississippi Gaming Commission will meet at 10 a.m. Thursday at Scarlet Pearl.

This story was originally published January 20, 2016 at 3:13 PM with the headline "Coast casinos roll out best year since 2008 ."