Today, we celebrate the 30th anniversary of legal casino gambling in Mississippi. From 1992 to 2022, the impact of the gaming industry impacts jobs, tourism, taxes, schools, and local charities.
Making a winning bet on Mississippi’s economy, employment, and way of life. On August 1st, 1992, the first casino, Isle of Capri, opened as a riverboat casino in Biloxi.
However, getting state legislation to pass the now billion-dollar gaming industry into law was a tough bet. Lifelong Biloxi resident Vincent Creel said, “Some of these legislators, there was no way they could go back home and say I voted for gambling.”
M2 Media Group Owner Michael Sunderman said, “When the idea of bringing in legalized dock-side gaming came in, there was a lot of push back.”
In 1990, the legislature passed dock-side gaming laws, allowing casinos to operate in the Mississippi Sound on offshore floating barges, but still coastal counties voted against it. Gulfport Mayor Billy Hewes said, “Referendum had failed in Harrison County, failed in Jackson County, passed in Hancock County. They came back and passed it in Harrison County after the initial legislation. So, there was a lot of give and take, push and shove.”
The inevitable happened and two years later on a hot summer day, “The lines were out the door. It was a long, long line. I remember Senator Gollott, he was the first one to roll the dice. He had been a big proponent of passing the Gaming Control Act in 1991 and so there was a lot of celebration and a lot of hope,” said Mayor Hewes.
South Mississippi quickly became a resort destination with a new legal casino amenity. Creel said, “We had the deep-sea fishing, the championship golf course, the fresh seafood. We had the array of all those things plus something Las Vegas could never have, 300 years of colorful history.”
Following the Nevada gaming model, allowing an unlimited number of gaming licenses meant if a company had the money, zoning within the state, and land to build a casino, they could. “Other jurisdictions limit the number of licenses and what that does is that curves innovation, that curves opportunity.”
Withstanding 30 years of tropical weather and infrastructure gambling, the casino industry along the Coast has been a steady winner. “There is not a bigger story than what this gaming industry has meant to this city, this county, and to this state. It was done right.”
Sunderman said, “Everyone said we’d be lucky to be a couple hundred-million-dollar market. Last year, we did $3.3 billion. So, I think we surpassed everyone’s projections.”
The economic impact of casinos in the state proves it is an industry to bet on. Mayor Hewes said, “It grew into tens of thousands of people being employed on the Coast and throughout the state.”
Sunderman said, “You can ask any charity leader down here who is their biggest supporter and giver and it’s almost always the casino industry.”
Beating all odds, Mississippi celebrates 30 years of gaming. Creel said, “Who would have thought Mississippi could have done it right and in my hometown.”
Tune into News 25 Tuesday for part two of ‘A Winning Bet: Gaming Post-Hurricane Katrina.’
