About 784 St. Louis area casino workers are permanently losing their jobs. STL Gaming Ventures has notified the Missouri Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development that Hollywood Casino in Maryland Heights is getting rid of 455 the positions beginning in mid-August. PNK River City says it plans to lay off 329 workers at River City Casino in St. Louis beginning around August 15.

The companies say the cutbacks are due to the unforeseen circumstances of the coronavirus.

“These significant drags on our business will likely continue for the foreseeable future. Finally, we could not have anticipated when our properties would be allowed to reopen and how restrictive the new operating conditions would be, and the negative impact this would have on business volumes. As a result of all of these unfortunate circumstances, we are notifying you of this decision as soon as we practically could, taking into account the great difficulties our entire industry faces in projecting future staffing needs under these unprecedented circumstances,” says STL Gaming Ventures in a letter to the state.

All 13 Missouri casinos were closed in mid-March to help reduce the spread of the coronavirus. They were allowed to reopen on June 1.

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