This weekend the SugarHouse casino in Philadelphia, PA celebrated its first birthday. Hooray. Where’s my piece of cake?! Of course, like the rest of the casino business not everything is A-OK.

Though SugarHouse has no competition in the city and a vast population to draw from, first-year gross revenue was $212.2 million, less than half what market leader Parx generated and 40 percent less than at Harrah’s Chester Casino & Racetrack.

So, if your business is not making enough money, what do you do? Expand to create more revenue.

 The addition would add on a restaurant, poker room, 35-40 table games, hundreds more slot machines, a hotel tower with 250-350 rooms, and a six-floor parking garage that seemed to be the main concern of the Commissioners.

He added that the expansion would result in 600 construction jobs and 500 permanent jobs.

He also said that the casino was interested in acquiring the immediately adjacent properties, in order to connect Penn Treaty Park with the casino’s promenade. The casino may also open a dock for water taxis and ferries, pending approval from the various city offices they’d have to go through.

There are no dates surrounding this expansion, but I’ll keep an eye on that. In a volume business this expansion seems as if it could make sense. One articles states how the machines are filled on the weekends and that there just isn’t enough room. Doubling size probably won’t double revenue, but the increased revenue should only help make SugarHouse the biggest casino in Pennsylvania in the future.

Of course, this is all another Death Blow to Atlantic City.

Originally on AC2LV