Local casinos are not recession-proof

I've talked about California's Native American casinos here and there in my blogging career. The advantage of the local casinos is that you don't have to drive all the way to Las Vegas to play at them, so you'd think that they would be attractive during a recession. However, apparently they're not attractive enough:

Revenues at Indian casinos across the country were actually up 2.3 percent in 2008, according to the annual report from the Nation Indian Gaming Commission. But in California, where most of the 58 tribal casinos are in areas affected by last year's collapse of housing markets, revenues were down 5.6 percent.

More here.

Apparently local casinos are like local amusement parks - attractive during the first stage of a recession, but less attractive as the recession gets deeper.