If it can be backwards, and/or contribute to politicians bankroll, you can rest assured that is the way it will go in MS. I'm sure that the casinos we have are big lobbyists against seeing this happen.
My understanding is the casinos are wanting online sports gambling provided the law requires that they tied to a brick and mortar casion's sports book.
gotcha. I have some casino customers, but I'm pretty ignorant on their position on online gambling. I just assume the worst when it comes to politician's motivations for doing/not doing things...
Well, I am taking that from what one legislator that is on the gaming committee said, and he didn't say it quite so straightforwardly. Sounded to me like the casino lobby is ready to deal, but it's also possible their position is they're going to go to the mat to stop it but if for some reason they can't, they're going to go to the mat to make sure they still get a cut.
Semi-related note: Anybody on here have a disproportionate number of people that they know move to Colorado post legalization? In all my years, I had one family that I knew who moved there beforehand. Since legalization, I know of lots of people who suddenly decided to move to Colorado.
I do know some friends who have recently rekindled friendships with relatives, friends, associates who live in CO.
I remember living in Memphis when Tunica Opened Up then Desoto County wanted in on the action and the "anti-gambling" crusade revved up their engines letting everyone know about the bad side of gambling such as crime and gambling addictions that can destroy families. Turns out all that anti-gambling advertising money was coming from the Tunica Casinos to keep the competition out.
It was also because they had invested so much money into where they were now they didn’t want to lose it all in a move to Desoto County.
I moved to CO in 2017, but that was just a bonus. lol
Would you say casinos were a net positive for the area, even considering how things are today? I go up there on business some and there are a lot of massive grown up parking lots and buildings that seem destined for returning to dust at some point. Make me wonder if it would've been better to just have left it as a field.
Maybe because I'm older, I just know more people, but I see a lot of mid-20's still trying to figure out life (normal) moving to CO to do so. I don't have any particular statistics, just observational on my part that it seems like a lot.
It’s hard to say. It was a big boom for the county obviously when things were good pre recession and pre 2011 flood. Both of those events really put things into a tailspin.
This is not specific to Tunica, but I asked somebody involved in gaming one time about how he viewed its long term impacts on the community. My basic question was whether the Mississippi Gulf Coast would eventually turn into a ******** around the casinos like Atlantic city. His position was that gambling is good for a community as long as it's adding to something already there. Said Las Vegas was different because they were basically a one-off but that even then, they invested a lot of gaming revenue into additional attractions. Said the Coast would be good both because it had other amenities like the beach and water but also because the requirement to invest in things beyond the casino to get a license. Said Tunica and Greenville probably never should have had casinos and said Vicksburg was iffy. Said Atlantic City should have been fine but suffered from poor leadership. That didn't make me feel a lot better because I'm not sure how good the leadership on the coast is historically and whether it's likely to stay good even if it has been good since casinos have come.
I can tell you this from experience. If you were a retail business owner within 50 miles of any of the casinos when they opened.....you knew they had opened. At least initially they had a very significant effect on local retail businesses, sadly more so in the poorer areas. Many people got "hooked" early and started sacrificing even essentials to gamble. I hope that has long since changed since the newness wore off.
The key to it working is leadership. The coast in general has good leadership, Tunica doesn’t. In fact it’s worse than when it started. All the people in charge that were good with handling the money got voted out.
My observation, by appearance, which may be completely unfair, is that in MS casinos many of the people gambling in there are the ones who can least afford to lose money and the rest are retirees that find it entertaining I guess. I actually sent my kids a pic of a bunch of gray hairs mindlessly pushing buttons and asked them the odds that they also complained about how much time kids these days spent on phones and video games. I will start spending money at them as soon as both me, and the casino, refer to it as gambling. At present it is a gamble for only one side.
Well that was really the point of my post. While I'm sure the tax money collected has been put to good use (or not) there is and has been a very real downside to it that you don't realize unless you have witnessed the effects first hand.
My completely uneducated guess on this. Big positive for the Coast, slight positive for Vicksburg, likely neutral to slight negative for Greenville and Natchez. I'm not at all familiar with the casino operations in Tunica.
If we had the money, I would move to Glendwood/Carbondale CO for sure.
