Recession lifts odds facing small casinos

SPARKS -- For 10 years, Nonie Galloway helped pay the bills as a hostess-cashier at the Silver Club in Sparks.

Now, the 34-year-old single mother of five is wondering what she'll do next after the resort on Saturday became the latest small casino to close in Nevada, a long-term trend that experts say is being exacerbated by the recession.

"It's been rough, really rough," said Galloway, whose kids range in age from 2 to 14.

"It's upsetting my kids, too, because they're worried about me and what I'm going to do next. I don't know what I'm going to do now," she added.

Galloway is among thousands of employees who have lost jobs statewide as the recession and spread of Indian gambling have combined to take a toll on small casinos.

The faltering economy is the driving force in the Holder Hospitality Group's decision to close its Silver Club in Sparks and its Red Garter Casino in West Wendover on March 3, company spokesman Tom Clark said.

The moves affect 219 employees at the Silver Club and 155 at the Red Garter.

Holder has been trying to sell its 13 Nevada casinos for 18 months, Clark said, but prospective buyers have faced difficulty securing credit.

"We're seeing the perfect storm," Clark said. "The traveling public and locals don't have the disposable dollars like they have in the past. The smaller properties are having more trouble weathering the storm than the larger properties."

Elsewhere, the December closure of the Oasis' casino, restaurants and nightclubs in Mesquite affected 500 workers, while the November closure of Fitzgeralds Casino-Hotel in Reno affected 475 employees.

Tom Cargill, a University of Nevada, Reno economics professor, said smaller Nevada casinos have struggled since the advent of Indian casinos in California and the recession may have accelerated a long-term trend of such resorts going out of business.

"There's a long-term trend here where these places don't reopen so what you could see here is a further deterioration of the gaming base," he told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

"The days when you could just build a cement building and put mirrors and slot machines inside and make money, well, those days are long over," he added.

The recession continues to hurt Nevada casinos both big and small, according to a report Friday from the state Gaming Control Board.

The casinos reported an almost 15 percent drop in winnings from gamblers in November, the 11th straight month of declines, compared with the same month a year earlier.