Penn National income up for 2011; Beulah Park to be relocated to Youngstown

Penn National Gaming Inc. had net income of $499.6 million in 2011, according to financial documents released on Tuesday, a sharp improvement over net income of $153.2 million in 2010, when the company took a $193 million impairment charge on the value of two of its Illinois casinos.

Penn National, which owns a number of racetracks with casinos, had total revenues of $2.74 billion in 2010, up 11.4 percent compared with revenues of $2.46 billion last year. The company benefited in 2011 from full-year revenues from table games at its properties in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, two states that legalized table games at casino in the summer of 2010.

Interest expense on the company’s debt was $99.6 million in 2011, compared to $130.2 million in 2010. The company did not include a balance sheet in its Tuesday filing, but its third-quarter filing issued late last year listed total long-term debt of $1.81 billion.

In a statement accompanying the results, Peter Carlino, the company’s chief executive, said that Penn National now plans to relocate Beulah Park in Columbus, Ohio, to Youngstown, rather than Dayton. Penn plans to open a casino in Columbus in the fourth quarter of 2012.

Last year, Ohio passed legislation allowing racetrack owners to move their licenses, and Gov. Ted Strickland issued an executive order allowing racetracks to operate slot machines. Strickland’s order is being challenged by groups opposed to the order.

Penn National also owns Raceway Park in Toledo, and it said in the financial statements that it plans to move Raceway to Dayton. In the referendum authorizing the company to open the Columbus casino, Penn also received the exclusive right to open a freestanding casino in Toledo, so the relocation of the two tracks would provide the company with two additional markets for its casinos.