Mississippi Casinos
November 20, 1997
One of the unexpected features of the Great River Road is the widespread availability of casinos on and along the Mississippi River. In Minnesota, the casinos that we visited were ostensibly owned by native Indian tribes. Apparently, in Minnesota, it is legal for Indian tribes to build and run these casinos on tribal lands. Is it possible that some folks who have marginal qualifications as Indians are now claiming ancestry among the “First Nation” people so that they can share in this easy money?
Along the river road south of Minnesota, most casinos must float on the river to be legal. Almost every major town and lots of smaller towns sport their own casino.
Having spent a couple of months this fall following this river from one of its sources, down a tributary, and towards the Gulf of Mexico, I wonder if it would not be fair to compare the flow of water with the flow of money into the Mississippi River. Rain falling in Colorado, Montana, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Alabama and many other states flows into streams that grow into rivers and ultimately enter the Mississippi River. Money seems to follow a similar pattern. It flows from the pockets of plain folks living in the states along the river toward the river, much like the water. Often the customers drive long distances to gamble in these casinos. Thus, the highways function in the flow of money as tributaries of the river function in the flow of water. But there is a major difference. The water continues to flow, ultimately reaching the Gulf of Mexico. Who knows where the money that flows into the casinos ends up - not, we can assume, into the Gulf. It was once speculated that the Mafia owns many of the casinos in the United States. Is this still true or are casinos just another legitimate business where ownership is shared by virtuous stockholders around the world?
Whatever the case, casinos are sprouting up at a very rapid rate along the Mississippi River. But gambling along the river beside the states of Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee are small-time operations as compared to the true Mecca of gambling, located in one of the poorest areas of northwest Mississippi. Or at least what was once one of their poorest areas. Now the cotton and soybean fields on the river delta south of Memphis are sprouting a new crop - casinos. Casino builders are flocking to this region at such a rapid rate that they may soon challenge Las Vegas for the title of gambling capital of the USA. In the Robinsonville/Tunica area can be found ten casinos, with more under construction. They include the Hollywood, Harrahs, Harrahs Tunica, Sam’s Town, Bally’s, Circus Circus, Fitzgerald’s, Grand, Horseshoe and Sheraton casinos. These are LARGE casinos! Three of these casinos sports hotels of over 500 rooms each. The combined floor space of the ten casinos is over half a million sq. ft. and the lucky customer can choose from 35 restaurants. The unlucky ones can go home to a can of beans if they still have a home. The Hollywood Casino also provides an RV park, complete with overnight telephone hookups. We stayed there two nights to catch up on phone calls and email.
There is some fuzzy law in Mississippi requiring these casinos to be on the water. But this law is a farce and obviously not enforced by the State Gambling Commission. Apparently, this law is satisfied by placing the casinos on land between the flood-preventing levee and a river. During floods, these areas may be inundated which apparently satisfies the law. But astute casino owners who wish to avoid complications of the future interpretation of this law use another gimmick. For example, the Hollywood Casino dug a pit, filled it with water and then built over it. In a couple of locations on the floor level, open areas in the floor provide visual evidence there is really water under the casino. The Grand is actually built over the water of a horseshoe lake. The others seem to make little pretense at being located over water. After all, who is going to complain? These casinos are generating revenue for the state and counties, so the politicians and most voters are happy. They are providing jobs for the locals and business for contractors, electricians, and carpenters. Field hands that were driving tractors and running irrigation systems in cotton fields are now night guards, receptionists, and maids.
My curiosity got the best of me, so I asked Jan Cobb, who works behind the desk at the Helena AR visitors center about all this gambling activity. She lives in West Memphis, AR and commutes to her job in Helena. Her husband races dogs at a very large dog track in West Memphis. She explained that the Christian Coalition came into the neighboring state of Arkansas last year to help defeat a proposition to allow casino gambling. “Gambling is immoral,” claimed the Christians. But proponents countered that good old Arkansas money was flowing across the river into the hands of those rascal Mississippians. Why not keep our money at home in Arkansas? Not satisfied with preventing casino gambling, the Coalition decided to go after dog racing in West Memphis and horse racing in Hot Springs. Jan Cobb spent a few restless nights worrying, but was greatly relieved by the results of the election. If dog racing had been outlawed, she would have been forced to move from West Memphis and would have had to give up her job at the visitors center if she wished to follow her husband and his dogs. Maybe because betting on horses and dogs was an established tradition, the voters chose to see them in a different moral light and voted to keep this form of gambling. So, lots of money from Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Alabama flows into Mississippi where it creates jobs and builds additional casinos.
A sign along highway 61 near Robinsonville, brags that “Our slots return 98%.” This promotional is designed to convince us that fortunes await at their slot machines. But, I don’t get it! Does this claim mean that if I invest $1.00 in the slots I can expect to get back only $0.98 in return? Wow! What a deal! On the surface, it may appear that I am paying only a 2% charge for the joys of gambling. But it seems to me that this is not like a bank charging 2% interest per year, it is a 2% charge every time a coin is dropped into a slot. A pretty high price for me to pay in order to hear an occasional clatter of a payoff into the metal dish under the machine. Inside the Hollywood Casino entrance is a large display of photographs of the winners holding extra large checks made out for $10,000, $20,000 and even $50,000. Wonder why they don’t show photos of losers selling their homes to pay their gambling debts. Why is it that the local radio and television news reports announce only winners and not losers?
Yes, the evidence is very persuasive; these casinos are imbued with altruistic motives - their goal is to bring wealth to their customers. To make it easier for customers to get rich, they are now provided with ATM-like cards that fit into a card slot on the gambling machines. Older folks - worried that they may lose their cards - attach them to a cord around their necks. At the Hollywood Casino, one of these cards provided me with a 10% discount on the cost of my RV site. My debt limit was set at $40. What nice folks! How considerate they are to make gambling so much easier. Now it is no longer necessary to carry those heavy, plastic buckets full of quarters. Simply plug in your card and instant wealth may be yours.
Actually, this whole business of organized gambling is very disturbing. Most of us have no ethical quarrel with a couple of guys betting on the outcome of a football game. But the state sponsorship of gambling, either directly with the lottery or indirectly through taxation of casinos, raises questions about the message this sends to the gullible. If, by building a few large, gaudy casinos and making extravagant claims about how easy it is to get rich, casino owners can so easily dupe us into investing in something that usually produces negative returns, what does this say about our ability to make other important decisions? How about the reasoning process that we use to choose our political leaders? Are we influenced by gaudy appearances and glitzy claims? I don’t know, but find it a little frightening that we might be. It seems that our educational system has exhibited only limited success in teaching our young citizens about the methods useful in separating fiction from truth. How else is it possible for so many of us to believe that we can really beat the odds at casinos or that the alignment of the stars can be used to predict the success of our next romantic encounter? Why is it possible for scam artists to find us such easy marks? Or if we satisfy the rituals of serious wishing, our wishes will somehow come true.
Oh well, there are now 29 casinos in the state of Mississippi, so maybe we will find some more convincing evidence of the benevolence of the gambling industry before we leave the state.
No comments:
Post a Comment