Why do different casinos generate different amount of money?

MaxisMC: There are some known balance issues with the casino specialization that are being investigated. Improving your city's tourist attraction by adding landmarks and mass transit will help. It is possible to get the HQ, and focusing on one casino might help, but it is a lot more difficult than intended.

Looks like there was a last minute adjustment of non-basic casinos that adjusted their profitability that is being reviewed by Maxis.

In my last casino city I did have (2x basic casinos) and a sci-fi casino going at roughly breakeven with one disco and 2x hotel low wealth rooms. With this setup I was maxing out on low wealth patrons but only a smattering of mid-wealth patrons. (Oh and I did have Toyko tower to bring in the tourists).

I would suggest:

• better mass transit: train station in the downtown 'core', boats w/ cruise ship upgrade, airport
• spam basic casinos to get the lodging upgrade at the HQ before moving onto the top 3 casino types

The sci-fi casino has much higher running costs so you need the money that is made from mid-wealth tourists, not low-wealth ones.

With the smaller city sizes the game is much more about "leveling" ie: build/max out our city at one income level, making a tweak (HQ upgrade) and then going back and upgrading buildings. Only time you can short circuit this is if someone else in your region already has those buildings.

Casinos are a tricky business to try and handle. So here is a list of things to consider if you want to build something of a casino strip.

• Sims are a first come first spent mentality. When they come to your town for tourism they will spend their money on the first touristy thing they can get their hands on. If they pass a commercial building on the way to your casino then they just dropped some of their cash on souvenirs.
• Sims are not an endless resource. They have a set amount of money and will come to your city to spend it. If you do not have enough tourists to fill your casinos then a new one will never make money.
• Casinos need to be turned into hotels if you want to get all of the money out of the Sims in question. You seem to have this part down however but its here for completeness.

So what you are seeing is the first and second notes really hitting home. Your first casino is getting most of the Sims and their cash. It seems to be placed pretty well for this to happen. Your second casino is taking the overflow (it is generating just a fraction of the income the first casino is doing). I would have to say your city simply does not attract enough tourists to support all three casinos.

You can try and put down some Expo buildings and the like to get this moving forward and gain a bigger draw. Increase the manner in which you can import Sims (make sure you provide ways into your city that match the wealth level of the Sims your casino wants. Trains and Ferries are good for low-med but you will need an air port for wealthy Sims! As noted by Paralytic, if you build the addons for the ferry you can get wealthy Sims as well!)

And that is pretty much all the knowledge I have in the way of casinos and such.

Hope this helps.