Mohegan ― Increases in net revenue from Mohegan Sun slot machines and sports betting helped Mohegan, the Uncasville casino’s parent company, post $405.8 million in net revenues in the quarter that ended March 31, a year-over-year gain of 13.2%, the company announced this week.

Mohegan Sun’s net revenues of $225.9 million in the quarter were up 4.8% over the same three months in 2022.

“We are encouraged by the strong results from our digital segment and look forward to continued growth in that line of business,” Ray Pineault, Mohegan’s president and chief executive officer, said Thursday in a conference call with gaming industry analysts and investors.

Mohegan, which joined the introduction of online casino gaming and sports betting in Connecticut in late 2021, recently launched digital gaming at casinos it manages in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.

In the quarter that ended March 31, Mohegan Digital posted net revenues of $22.7 million, nearly four times what it generated the same quarter the previous year.

Even without a one-time payment from the company’s digital gaming partner, which accounted for some of the gain, Mohegan Digital would have shown “sequential growth” from quarter to quarter and year over year, Pineault said.

Though he declined to provide specifics, he said online casino gaming is more profitable than sports betting.

Another major reason for the impressive quarterly results was the performance of the company’s Niagara Resorts ― Fallsview Casino Resort and Casino Niagara. That segment of the business posted net revenues of $70.9 million in the quarter, reflecting a year-over-year increase of 35.4%. Mohegan noted the comparison was skewed by a government-mandated shutdown of the casinos for most of January 2022 due to a surge in COVID-19 cases at the time.

The Niagara Resorts’ nongaming revenues benefited from the opening in February of the 5,000-seat OLG Stage at Fallsview Casino Resort, where Billy Joel performed on opening night.

During the conference call, Pineault and other Mohegan executives fielded questions about the status of the company’s Inspire integrated resort project in South Korea and its involvement in a plan to develop a casino in a proposed entertainment complex in New York City.

Pineault said he had recently returned from South Korea, where, he said, Inspire’s nongaming facilities are on schedule to open by the end of 2023, with a foreigners-only casino to follow months later once licensing is in place. He said construction was 70% complete at the end of April.

During the quarter, Mohegan agreed to make additional investments of up to $119 million to complete the $1.6 billion project. Mohegan had previously invested $300 million.

Pineault said confidentiality agreements prevented him from commenting on Mohegan’s partnership with the Soloviev Group, the New York developer behind Freedom Plaza, a multi-billion-dollar entertainment complex proposed for the east side of midtown Manhattan near the United Nations headquarters. As part of the plan, Mohegan would operate a casino and resort there.

Responding to an analyst’s question, Jody Madigan, Mohegan’s chief operating officer, said Mohegan Sun has yet to feel much competitive impact from Bally’s Corp.’s recent expansion of its Twin River Lincoln Casino Resort in Lincoln, R.I. The Rhode Island casino added 40,000 square feet of new gaming space last month.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com