This is a message to everyone who looks at a casino only on the negative side of gambling. Sure, gambling can be a problem when responsibility is not addressed either by the authorities or the operators, but in this new millennium both parties know their place in the industry. The fears and horror stories of the ignorant or mere moralizers are both out of place and down right irresponsible – a casino is a business where people earn their living.

On the eve of the reopening of the Imperial Palace, a report from the Mobile Register bring the story of how regular people get on with the work of opening a place of business, which in this case is a casino, after Katrina brought disaster to the Gulf cities: "On Wednesday afternoon, less than 24 hours before the Imperial Palace was scheduled to reopen, the lobby was unfurnished and covered in dust, fire alarms were going off and the casino and hotel had not yet received a certificate of occupancy from the city of Biloxi.

"But by today, if all goes according to plan, the sounds of yelling workers and blaring alarms should be replaced by rattling coins and shouts of ‘hard eight’ and ‘double down,’ as the IP becomes the first coastal casino to return after Hurricane Katrina. The mad dash to the finish - which had hundreds of construction workers, casino employees and state and city inspectors swarming the grounds this week - was needed to get the casino operating in time to work out all the reopening kinks before New Year's Eve.”

Jon Lucas, Imperial Palace's president and general manager said: "We've been double-shifting, going 20-hour days, seven days a week." And this is exactly what people in the gaming business are all about. Just regular people earning their livelihood like anybody else. And the product on offer is entertainment and gambling, which modern society has taken as a way of having fun in life.

The work on the IP casino should culminate in a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 9 a.m. today, after which officials will step aside and let visitors rush inside. And rush they will because when you are used to the tingle of the slots and the regular people that service the property, clients just treat the place as a social club, which is the most important part of a well run casino property, in these days when service is so impersonal.

As gaming life begins to get its semblance of old, The Isle of Capri is set to reopen Monday, and the Palace Casino will follow suit in time for the New Year. Residents and regional officials said the reopenings should help pump visitors, and the revenue, into the regional economy that was built around tourism. Stephen Richer, executive director for the Mississippi Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau, said: "It's not just one hotel in one city and in one state; this is all about helping the regional economy. It gives us hope for 2006."

In the month before Katrina hit, Mississippi's casinos took in more than $86 million, giving the state more than $10 million in taxes. In the month following Katrina, those numbers fell to about $12 million and $1.6 million, respectively. Lucas called the casinos the 'economic engine' of the region, the the casinos "is really the beginning of the rebuilding process. It sends a message that the Gulf Coast will be back."
(S-12.22.05)

© Copyright 2005 CasinoCompendium



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