Math Club Reject of the Week

An NBC station in the supposedly well educated state of Conneticut reports that two casinos suffered low slot machine revenues because of the snowy weather in February this year. They report:

The snowy weather has taken a bit of a toll on the slots revenue at the state's
two casinos.

Officials with Foxwoods Resort Casino said that the casino cleared $67 million from its slot machine customers in February while Mohegan Sun cleared $68 million.

The slot revenues at both were down compared with last year.

In February 2004, Mohegan Sun reported slot machine revenues of
nearly $69 million while Foxwoods reported revenue of $68.5 million.

The story doesn't say if the Casinos or the TV station came to this weather conclusion. Since casinos make money on an understanding of math (statistics in particular), let's hope for their stock holder's sake it was the TV station. Let's see how this math stuff works.


The Mohegan Casino in Conneticut, one of the few casinos that might not understand math.

Foxwoods' revenue dropped from $68.5 million (2004) to $67 million (2005), a drop of 2.2% for the month compared to last February. The February 2005 revenue per day ($67 million/28)comes out to $2.39 million.

At Mohegan, revenue dropped from $69 million (2004) to $68 million (2005), a drop of 1.4%. Also, revenue for February 2005 ($68 million/28) was $2.43 million per day.

Now, let's look at February 2004. The year 2004 was a leap year, which means February was 29 days long. February 2005 was 3.4% shorter than February 2004. In other words, a month that was 3.4% shorter resulted in revenue that was 2.2% and 1.4% less. Is that a bad thing?

Let's find out.

Revenue per day at Foxwoods was $2.36 million in 2004 and $2.39 million in 2005. Thus, at Foxwoods, revenue per day increased in 2005.

Revenue at Mohegan per day was $2.38 million in 2004 and $2.43 million in 2005. Thus, at Mohegan, revenue per day increased in 2005.

Yup, that global warming caused snow sure did do the casinos harm in February of 2005. I'm sure that the writers of this story were educated in government schools.