After just 15 months on the job, Jack Sours is out as general manager of Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack & Resort in West Virginia.
Parent company MTR Gaming Group Inc. confirmed to the Weirton Daily Times March 30 that Sours no longer holds the position he has had since January 2009. In an e-mail to the newspaper, MTR Gaming said operations would continue seamlessly while it seeks a replacement.
The company did not say whether Sours quit or was fired.
Sours had worked for Isle of Capri Casinos Inc. before taking the job at Mountaineer. Former MTR Gaming president Robert Griffin, who took a job with Trump Entertainment Resorts last fall, also had been an Isle of Capri executive before joining MTR Gaming in 2008.
Last fall, a former state legislator sued Mountaineer for alleged gender discrimination after she was fired from a job she had held at the track for 12 years. Tamara Pettit, marketing and public relations director from 1989 until mid-August 2010, named Sours and human resources director Vincent Azzarello as defendants in the case in Hancock County Circuit Court in West Virginia.
Meanwhile, Mountaineer’s profits have been off as it wrestles with fierce competition from casinos in Pennsylvania.
Fourth-quarter net revenue for 2010 was down 12%, from $55 million in 2009 to $48.4 million, in the company’s last earnings report. MTR Gaming said table games at Mountaineer generated $6.1 million, down from $9.8 million the previous year. Revenue from slot machines was down from $38.6 million to $36.4 million.
MTR Gaming also owns Presque Isle Downs & Casino near Erie, Pa., and Scioto Downs near Columbus, Ohio.
