Hancock County goes Hollywood

Former Casino Magic opens under new owners today

David Moynan expects his business to benefit from today’s opening of Hollywood Casino in Bay St. Louis, the first Coast casino outside Harrison County to reopen since Hurricane Katrina made landfall a year ago.

“It will be a big help to all of us in downtown Bay St. Louis; plus it will provide additional hotel space,” said Moynan, owner of Maggie Mays gift shop and president of the Old Town Bay St. Louis Merchants Association.

“People who come to gamble sometimes bring with them people who don’t want to gamble but want to see what Old Town looks like.”

The 11 a.m. opening of Hollywood Casino, which was formerly known as Casino Magic, will put 950 employees back to work, and that’s excellent news, said Hal Walters, executive director of the Hancock County Port and Harbor Commission.

“A lot of them have have been waiting for the casino to open up,” he said. “They’ve got jobs they enjoyed and wanted to go back to. To me, it’s economic development in a big way.”

Hancock County also will benefit financially from Hollywood’s opening, Walters said.

Each casino’s gross gaming revenue is taxed at a rate of about 12 percent. Hancock County will receive about 4 percent of the casino’s gross gaming revenue; the other 8 percent will go to the state’s general fund.

More than 700 of the 950 employees worked at the resort before Katrina demolished its 200-room inn, destroyed its human resources and maintenance building and swept its entertainment barge from its moorings across the Bay of St. Louis to Diamondhead, five miles away.

The resort’s gaming barge stayed in place, but severe wind took the sides off. The resort’s hotel tower took on 15 feet of water, windows blew out, and the building was left a muddy mess.

Hollywood Casino is the only casino in Hancock County, but it won’t be for long, said Larry Gregory, executive director of the Mississippi Gaming Commission.

Silver Slipper Gambling Hall & Saloon, which is new to the market, plans to open Oct. 12 in Waveland.

Donald Trump’s casino company announced in June it intends to form a partnership to build a gambling resort on land recently zoned for casinos in Diamondhead.

Isle of Capri Casinos Inc. announced in May it wants to build a new casino resort on the north shore of the Bay of St. Louis in rural Harrison County, near the Hancock County border.

Hollywood will cater to the Louisiana market whereas the Biloxi casinos cater to the Florida panhandle, Mobile and other Alabama areas, Gregory said.

“I think you’ll see large crowds be there for the opening day,” he said. “You’ll see people from Louisiana. That’s its crowd.”

The temporary casino at Hollywood Casino will open with 850 slots, 20 tables games and six poker tables, said John Jagunich, president and general manager at Hollywood Casino.

Plans are to add 420 slots about six months after the casino opens, he said.

Reopening in the hotel tower will be 291 refurbished hotel rooms, several restaurants, 14,000 square feet of meeting space and a ballroom that seats 800 people, he said.

Restaurants will include The Epic Buffet, Tuscany Steak, Seafood, Jackpot Java and Oak Royale nightclub.

The Bridges Golf Club, the only golf course on the grounds of a Gulf Coast casino resort, is being reshaped with new sod, greens, tee boxes and bunkers, and foliage.

It is expected to reopen between Oct. 1 and Oct. 15, Jagunich said.

Hollywood Casino’s 100-space RV park has been open since a month after Katrina, Jagunich said. Penn National Gaming, which owns Hollywood Casino, plans to build “bigger and better permanent facilities,” he said.

HOLLYWOOD CASINO IN BAY ST. LOUIS

- Opens: 11 a.m. today
- Number of employees: 950 – 700 of whom worked there before Hurricane Katrina.
- One thing that sets it apart: It’s the only casino in Hancock County.
- What’s there: a temporary casino with 850 slots, 20 tables games and six poker tables; 291 refurbished hotel rooms; several restaurants; 14,000 square feet of meeting space and a ballroom that seats 800 people; 100-space RV park.

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