CASINO GAMING RETURNED TO BILOXI, MISSISSIPPI Thursday, as the newly-renovated Imperial Palace opened its doors at 11:00 a.m. It's very good news for the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where lots of folks are still living in tents during near-freezing nighttime weather (reports about victims by Shepard Smith on Fox News Channel this week were alarmingly eye-opening). It's not particularly good news for video poker fans unless major changes were made in paytables during the renovation, which isn't likely. Next week, the Isle of Capri and New Palace reopen using temporary land-based casinos.
BUT GULFPORT LOSES ONE OF ITS TWO CASINOS FOR GOOD. Harrah's announced that they have sold what's left of the old Grand Casino Gulfport to the owners of the neighboring Copa Casino, a locals joint best known as the home of the only positive-off-the-top video poker on the coast, and perhaps anywhere west of Nevada. Both the Grand and Copa were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina; half of the Grand's barge landed on Beach Boulevard and was imploded to get the road reopened, and the Copa barge landed next to the Grand's parking deck. While the Grand was much larger than the Copa, it really paled in comparison to its sister Grand in Biloxi, and didn't really have anywhere to grow, physically or in market share. The Copa, on the other hand, had no hotel of its own and no growth room in its mooring at the Mississippi State Docks; its road access was also awkward. With this sale, the Copa ownership gets a nearly-clean slate to build a much bigger project, but hopefully with the same excellent VP they had the only FP Deuces (quarter progressive, to boot) and Jokers Wild (halves and dollars) in the region.
Note to vpFREE Administrator: The name of the town where Tunica County's casinos are located has changed from Robinsonville to Tunica Resorts. You might want to change the database accordingly.
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