Harrah’s Entertainment’s top executive is recommending the Mississippi government allow the company to build a temporary casino on land to replace its Grand Casino Biloxi riverboat, which was hurled ashore and destroyed in Hurricane Katrina.
The temporary casino, without a hotel, could be built relatively quickly and could “start to generate some revenue” for the state, Chief Executive Gary Loveman said.
Mississippi’s Gulf Coast has been decimated by Katrina. Both its riverboat-based tourist economy and its local economy have been destroyed. When asked about the appropriateness of opening a casino amid the destruction, Loveman said the casino would draw from a wider region and would generate more tax revenue for the state than, say, a hotel.
“We would draw from a three-hour perimeter,” he said. “That would be a start.”
Harrah’s also owns the Grand Casino Gulfport in Mississippi, a riverboat casino that was destroyed, and a land-based casino in New Orleans that sustained only modest damage. Harrah’s owns more casinos that were hurt by Katrina than those owned by any other Las Vegas operator…
…When and where the company will be allowed to rebuild its Biloxi and Grand Casino Gulfport properties and whether they would be farther inland and in more secure locations “will depend on if the law changes,” he said. Loveman later said there was a “good chance it will be changed.”
Mississippi law now requires casinos to be built on boats or pontoons over water, though a change implemented last month allows casinos to be built on pilings over water. Some observers say the riverboat requirement will end because of the damage wrought by the storm, which tossed many riverboats ashore.
Liz Benston
Las Vegas Sun, via lasvegassun.com
Analysis:
It is amazing how quickly corporations and individuals will seek to profit from tragedy. It is my prayer that when New Orleans and the port cities of Mississippi rebuild, they will leave off rebuilding the centers of vice that have become synonymous with that area of the country.
Here is an opportunity for these communities to reject the ungodly practices that characterized the coastal cities of Louisiana and Mississippi. There is no need to rebuild the casinos, and yet the gambling industry will use hurricane Katrina to lobby lawmakers to change the laws, and allow the casinos to leave the coast, and take up residence inland.
Perhaps such destruction should be viewed as a chastisement from God, and repentance should be forthcoming, rather than rebuilding the infrastructure of ungodliness.
