June was a wake-up month for Mississippi casinos, which saw the kind of bad hand dealt casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City for well over a year.

The gross casino revenue reported monthly by the Mississippi State Tax Commission showed Coast casinos down 28 percent compared to last June. The river casinos were down 13 percent and the state overall saw a 20 percent drop in casino revenue.

June 2008 was the fifth- best month on record, when the Coast casinos won $114.6 million.

There are 11 casinos now compared to 12 before Hurricane Katrina.

August 2008 was the last time the Coast casinos saw a better month than the previous year.

This the 10th straight decline.

That’s followed by a State of the Industry report from Virginia McDowell, president of Isle of Capri Casinos; John Payne, president of Harrah’s Entertainment’s Central Division, and Tom Wilmott, president of Penn National Gaming, parent company of Boomtown Biloxi and Hollywood Casino Bay St. Louis.

They know first hand the casino industry in Biloxi has many of the same challenges as businesses around the country.

“Right now everyone is aware of the financial constraints in the market,” said Larry Gregory, executive director of the Mississippi Gaming Commission. Almost all new development is on hold, he said, and most existing casinos are waiting on expansion plans.

Some progress is being made on new casino projects, but John Ellis, one of the developers of Blue Water Bay Resort, said it is probably three years before the casino resort near Pass Christian will be operational.

More info at SunHerald.com

Kennedy says she was in Biloxi for a conference and decided to go have fun at the casino during her free time.

The company said the loss reflected reduced spending by consumers at its Las Vegas casinos and the closing of several Gulf Coast properties for hurricanes Gustav and Ike. Grand Biloxi was closed for almost four days during Gustav and streets were closed at times in that area of the city during Ike.

Hopefully this will not slow the building and construction of Margaritaville anymore…

The project will be referred to as the Phoenix Caillavet Street Project, said Phoenix Gaming Group Managing Director John Ed Ainsworth, while they test market a new name.

“The first thing we needed to do was to stop the confusion,” he said. “This is no longer a Torguson project. That ended on March 18.” Phoenix Gaming Group was formed between Caillavet Street Development Group, the owner of the land where the casino will be built, and Firegame LLC, a finance company that holds an interest in the project.

Ainsworth said the casino resort will be reconfigured without condominiums. It will be built right off Interstate 110 on Caillavet Street at the west edge of the casino loop between the Back Bay and Biloxi beach. The resort was to have both a hotel and condos, several restaurants, plus shopping, nightclub and convention space.

A similar expansion was put on hold in 2007 as the Isle reassessed its needs in Biloxi.

CEO James B. Perry said Wednesday that the expansion was back on.

Perry said the Isle expansion should be complete to correspond with Harrah’s completion of its Jimmy Buffett-inspired $700 million Margaritaville Resort.

Perry said the Isle management believes Margaritaville will entice lots of visitors to the Point Cadet area and he wants construction of the Isle done by the time Margaritaville Casino opens in spring 2010.

Perry said the Isle plans a new single-level casino, restoration of our convention space, new restaurants and renovation of some hotel rooms.

Papers were signed Tuesday night so the Leucadia National Corporation could buy Windjammer’s 1.6 acre property, plus its harbor.

The property being sold is immediately to the west of Hard Rock’s swimming pool. So, it could easily be incorporated into future expansion plans.

A purchase price, and a closing date, have not been released.

BILOXI – Mayor A.J. Holloway welcomed the Mississippi Gaming Commission to Biloxi and the Hard Rock Casino on Thursday and said he hopes they will look favorably on the Gold Coast Casino.

Now known as the South Beach Resort and Casino, the project was rezoned waterfront by the Biloxi City Council. The commission will determine if the property on the north side of U.S. 90 on the Biloxi Strip is a suitable casino site.

Chairman Jerry St. Pé responded to Holloway’s remarks by saying the city can count on the commission to be “aggressive visionary partners.” He said the commission would look at the South Beach project “objectively, fairly and thoroughly.”

Officials from South Beach met recently with commission Executive Director Larry Gregory, who expects the site approval could be on the commission agenda in June.

“Within 60 days we’ll know one way or another” if South Beach Casino will be approved, he said. “We’ve been keeping up with it,” and he said despite whether city officials or local people speak for or against a casino project, “we look at each individual casino on its own merit.”

The commission traditionally schedules one of its monthly meetings each year on the Coast. Also at Thursday’s meeting, the commission approved the application of Penn National Gaming, the parent company of Boomtown Biloxi and Hollywood Bay St. Louis casinos, to be acquired by private-equity firms Fortress Investment Group and Centerbridge Partners.

Loren Ostrow, president of Silver Slipper Casino, was given approval for the sale of bonds and warrants by some of the company’s bond holders. He said Silver Slipper doesn’t have dates yet for construction of an addition to the casino, which now doesn’t have hotel rooms.

“It’s a different market now,” said Ostrow, and the project remains in the planning stages. “We’re hopeful sooner rather than later” construction can begin.

Related Post here at BiloxiBlog.com: Gold Coast Biloxi

Source: SunHerald.com – Mary Perez – Link

BILOXI – After a record-breaking year at the Coast casinos, competition is closing in from Mobile and Florida as other states look to legalize gambling to pay for schools and Medicare.

The Joint Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review last week said Mississippi could lose $254 million in yearly casino revenue and 3,191 direct jobs when the seven Seminole casinos in Florida are outfitted with new slot machines and table games. Because nearly all of the Florida gamblers play at the Coast casinos, those figures would mean one-quarter of the 12,328 people employed at the local casinos would lose their jobs.

Mississippi Gaming Commission Chairman Jerry St. Pé doesn’t believe the numbers. “The wolf’s not at the door,” he said. “Competition can be viewed as a stimulant.” For casinos that do a better job, “your market will be protected.”

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has signed a 25-year casino compact with the Seminoles for class III gaming in return for a minimum of $100 million per year to fund schools. Although the compact is being challenged in the Florida Supreme Court, the Seminoles are moving slot machines into their six casinos in southern Florida and the Hard Rock Casino in Tampa, the closest to Mississippi.

In Alabama, the House Tourism and Travel Committee approved a constitutional amendment to allow electronic bingo machines at greyhound dog tracks in Mobile and Birmingham. If the bill, passes the legislature the voters will decide the issue in a state referendum. These games look and play quite similar to the slot machines at the Coast casinos, said Ed Rogich, vice president of marketing with International Game Technology, the company that manufactures the machines.

“We keep our eye on what’s going on in Atlantic City and Las Vegas,” which St. Pé said also has an impact on the companies and investors doing business with Mississippi casinos. “We need to be as astute as we can,” he said, to protect casino tax revenue and jobs.

The MGC reports that 19.4 percent of the recent Coast’s casino visitors came from Florida and 14.8 percent from Alabama. An even larger percentage, 21.3 percent, came from Louisiana, which has casinos.

General Manager John Ferrucci said about 75 percent of the Silver Slipper Casino’s business is from Louisiana. “We’re already in competition with them. Florida is a threat only because they are going to introduce these games in key feeder markets for us.” He likes House Bill 1196 that would give tax breaks to casinos that invest at least $10 million in non-gambling amenities, including a hotel and marina at Silver Slipper, to attract visitors.

Source: Sun Herald 

The article was from WLOX:

BILOXI – The Bacaran Bay casino project on Caillavet Street will be built, without condominiums, and without its creator Marlin Torguson. On Tuesday, members of a newly formed company called the Phoenix Gaming Group confirmed that they now control the Caillavet Street site.

Their plan is to reconfigure Bacaran Bay, refinance it, and move it forward. Whatever the new design looks like, it won’t include condos.  Phoenix Gaming Group spokesman John Ed Ainsworth says the market isn’t right for condos to be part of a casino resort…  Read complete article.

I visited their website and it still looked like they were pushing condos, we will see when it is updated and post here at the Biloxi Blog.