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Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine how the recent recession affected Iowa's gaming industry by analyzing gaming volumes before and through the recession. Design/methodology/approach – This study used autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) with intervention analysis to examine Iowa statewide aggregated monthly slot coin-in, table drop, and admission from December 2001 through June 2012. Findings – The results of analyses show that: slot coin-in was not affected by the recession; table drop was slightly affected, but started to recover in late 2010; and monthly admission was not affected by the recession, and showed a significant increase after the recession. The results also indicate that the decrease in table drop in Iowa casinos represented only a very small amount of state gaming revenue in 2008. Therefore, the findings of this study suggest that Iowa's gaming volume was not significantly affected by the recent recession. In other words, Iowa's gaming industry is still recession-proof. Practical implications – Current economic conditions suggest that the threat of a double-dip recession is quite real. The findings of this study are expected to help casino managers in Iowa understand how non-destination casinos behaved differently through the recession and strategically plan for a possible future economic downturn. In fact, the significant increase of monthly admission during the last recession implies that the Iowa gaming industry has actually benefited from the recession by accommodating more patrons. Therefore, to capitalize on the next recession, Iowa's casino operators should consider reducing the number of table games and increasing the number of slot machines to accommodate more slot players and reduce operating costs. Originality/value – Most existing gaming-related research focuses on gaming destinations such as Las Vegas and Atlantic City. No known study on gaming volume in non-destination gaming markets has been identified. By examining Iowa's gaming volume through the recession, this study provides initial empirical evidence of the impact of recession on non-destination gaming markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to examine the performance of three smoothing methods on forecasting weekly Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR) following the recent recession in comparison to more sophisticated time series forecasting methods. The results of this study show that simpler methods perform better. Simple Moving Average and Single Exponential Smoothing outperformed Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average and Artificial Neural Networks in all 10 of 5-week fore casting horizons, which suggests accurate weekly RevPAR forecasting in both short and long term can be achieved with simple, easy-to-learn, yet effective methods. The findings of the study are expected to not only contribute to the limited literature of RevPAR forecasting, but also provide practitioners with empirical evidence for selecting appropriate time series forecasting methods for weekly RevPAR forecasting in different time horizons, particularly following an economic downturn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]