Wild Rose Casino and Resort in Jefferson continues to enjoy its best revenue it has ever seen this year.

Wild Rose Chief Operating Officer and President Tom Timmons says when the state shut down all casinos in March of 2020, it had a profound effect on him in his 30 years in the gaming industry.

“Yeah that is something I’ve never had to do in my career and we closed for 75 days. That was the longest 75 days of my career. But when we came back, we started doing some different things (and) didn’t know what to expect. People, we don’t know how they were going to receive us, if they would even come out of their houses, sort-of-speak.”

Since then, Wild Rose has been setting record numbers of revenue and charitable giving to the non-profit gaming license holder of Grow Greene County Gaming Corporation. The third quarter this year alone set an all-time high in charitable giving with $1.35 million. This past March, Wild Rose captured $3,531,142, which was a single month record since the casino opened in 2015. Timmons describes what he believes has led to their success coming off of a pandemic.

“We were one of the few places that were open during that time. And we became the place to go. We became more of a date night if you will for some of the younger people maybe we weren’t getting before. And it’s not just Wild Rose, but the whole industry in the state of Iowa is up I believe almost 20-percent over the previous year.”  

Only one month had a decrease in revenues through the first nine months of the year compared to last year and that was February, which was down 17-percent. Year-to-date from January through September, Wild Rose Jefferson saw a 68-percent increase in revenues from $16 million to $27 million.