The Isle of Capri Casino Resort in Biloxi celebrates its 15th birthday during a week-long celebration with food specials, fireworks and live entertainment from Monday through Aug. 5. The first casino in Mississippi, Isle of Capri opened its doors to guests on Aug. 1, 1992, according to organizers.
On Wednesday, visit the sixth floor of Isle of Capri’s parking garage for a birthday celebration, complete with fireworks. Beginning at 6 p.m. local and state leaders discuss how gaming started, and continues to grow, in the state. At 7 p.m., the Tip Tops perform on the sixth floor stage (food and drinks available for purchase). The fireworks begin 9 p.m. Wednesday.
The celebration continues Aug. 4, when the lobby atrium becomes a festive luau featuring stilt-walkers, jugglers, acrobats, fire-eaters and more. At 3 p.m. the Hookbills, a parrot troupe, perform in the main atrium. Interactive entertainment begins at 6 p.m., and live entertainment plays in the Lava Bar from 8 p.m.-midnight. For more details, call 1-800-THE-ISLE.
More Biloxi EntertainmentÂ
BILOXI, Mississippi — As reported by the Biloxi Sun Herald: “This seaside gambling resort along a stretch of the Gulf Coast, sometimes called the “Redneck Riviera,” has 40 percent fewer hotel rooms and only two-thirds as many slot machines as it did before Hurricane Katrina.
“The bridge connecting the casinos in this popular tourist destination to Alabama, the Florida panhandle and other points east remains closed, and Mayor A.J. Holloway estimates that as many as 15 percent of the city’s pre-Katrina residents still have not returned.
“Yet business in the gambling halls of Biloxi has reached all-time highs in recent months, so much so that Larry Gregory, the executive director of the Mississippi Gaming Commission, has half-jokingly barred his staff from uttering the phrase ‘record-setting’ because ‘it was becoming too redundant.’
“A similar story has unfolded in New Orleans, where tourism is still in the doldrums and only 60 percent of the pre-Katrina population has returned nearly two years after the hurricane. The casinos there seem to be faring even better than their Gulf Coast cousins.
“…Casino executives say they just give people a place to go for diversion. Meanwhile, perhaps their biggest challenge is to talk about their success without betraying too much glee, given the pain — financial and otherwise — still felt by virtually every other industry in town…”
BILOXI, Miss. — This seaside gambling resort along a stretch of the Gulf Coast, sometimes called the “redneck Riviera,†has 40 percent fewer hotel rooms and only two-thirds as many slot machines as it did before Hurricane Katrina. A major bridge that connects the casinos in this popular tourist destination to Alabama, the Florida Panhandle and other points east remains closed, and Mayor A. J. Holloway estimates that as many as 15 percent of the city’s pre-Katrina residents still have not returned.
Yet business in the gambling halls of Biloxi has reached all-time highs in recent months, so much so that Larry Gregory, the executive director of the Mississippi Gaming Commission, has half-jokingly barred his staff from uttering the phrase “record-setting†because “it was becoming too redundant.â€
A similar story has been unfolding in New Orleans, where tourism is still in the doldrums and only 60 percent of the pre-Katrina population has returned nearly two years after the hurricane and flooding devastated the area.
Indeed, the casinos there seem to be faring even better than their Gulf Coast cousins.
Harrah’s New Orleans, the largest casino in the city, is on pace for its best year ever: gambling revenue is up 13.6 percent through the first five months of 2007 compared with the same period in 2005, pre-Katrina.
The casinos in this region are generating more revenue — from significantly fewer players — in large part because of the extra money that many area residents have in their pockets and fewer alternatives on where to spend it, casino executives and others in the region say. Read the rest of this entry »
