mississippi

A Grand opening

The Island View casino, which is housed in the erstwhile Grand Casino Gulfport, has opened. For now, at least, it’s the only casino in Gulfport. From the Sun Herald: Gulfport is back in the casino business. The Island View opened Monday evening about an hour and a half earlier than planned, giving people time to

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news about gambling

Treasure Bay returns?

As longtime readers know, my favorite casino in the world was probably the Treasure Bay in Biloxi. There’s nothing much cooler than a riverboat casino that actually looks like a pirate ship. It also had the coolest carpet ever: a treasure map. When I heard that the casino wasn’t insured, I feared that, after being

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news about gambling

MS renewal

The Congress for the New Urbanism, led by Andres Duany, is going to be involved in rebuilding Mississippi. From Building Online: Mississippi Governor Enlists Congress for the New Urbanism in Historic Coastal Planning Effort. Working with Gov. Haley Barbour, a national team of 100 architects, planners, development experts, and other professionals organized by the Chicago-based

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news about gambling

Gambling at the Last Supper?

Another day, another clash between religion and gambling, it seems. First of all, a Mississippi state representative from Pass Christian has called would-be moralists out over their insistence that Katrina was doing God’s bidding: Rep. Jim Simpson of Pass Christian couldn’t believe the e-mails he received from some self-proclaimed Christians this week attempting to lobby

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gambling & culture

Rebuilding the Gulf Coast

The major casino companies involved in the Gulf Coast have already announced that they intend to rebuild. But will it be on land or water? Mississippi gov. Haley Barbour, speaking more broadly of the general reconstruction of the region, said that “if we rebuild the Coast and South Mississippi back just the way it was

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news about gambling

Gulf Coast update

Projections of the damage caused by Katrina, it seems, keep getting worse. The governor of Mississippi was quoted as saying that all Gulf Coast casinos had been completely destroyed. Even if it’s not that dire, it looks very bad. Any destruction of property, of course, pales beside the loss of human life, just as any

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news about gambling

Katrina closes casinos

Hurricane Katrina is, as I write this, devastating parts of Louisiana and Mississippi, and, as is increasingly common these days, there is a connection to gambling: casinos in the area, particuarly on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, have been hit hard, and the impact–in both the short and long run–will be felt nationally.

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news about gambling

The President resigns?

The President casino, long a mainstay in Biloxi, is closing up. It’s barge is being relocated. I’m sure that it’s a fine institution, but I had my doubts about the casino when I took a look at the carpet: It’s so lackluster–like someone dropped a bunch of swizzle sticks on the floor. When I first

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news about gambling

Bright Mississippi

Anytime I get to reference a Thelonious Monk composition, it’s good news. In any event, I am writing this from Mississippi–more precisely, in the library of the University of Southern Mississippi, on the ground floor, facing northeast (again, something for fans of The Wire to appreciate). I’m about a block away from the beach, which

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news about gambling

Mother nature hates casinos?

That’s the irrational explanation for those who try to impose causality on random events–something that many gamblers excel at. Anyway, because of the looming threat of Hurricane Ivan, the state has closed Mississippi coast casinos. From the Sun Herald: State regulators ordered the coast casinos shut to customers at noon Tuesday. Casino workers had until

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news about gambling