After a Year Biloxi Casinos Returning

It took a year, but Biloxi, Mississippi is starting to resemble the gambling jewel of the south it was before Hurricane Katrina changed everything and closed all 12 casinos last August.

Half the casinos that were destroyed have been reopened and by the time October comes, nine casinos will be open in the Biloxi area, with several more scheduled to open within the year.

Palace Casino Resort, Imperial Palace, Grand Biloxi, Isle of Capri, Boomtown and Treasure Bay are now open. Harrah's Grand Biloxi was the latest casino to reopen, which it did on Thursday. Some of these casinos were open within four months of the storm.

MGM's Beau Rivage is scheduled to reopen Aug. 29, which is the one-year anniversary that Katrina hit the coast. Casino Magic will become Hollywood Casino and is scheduled to reopen Sept. 1, and Copa Gulfport is scheduled to reopen as Island View Resort sometime in mid-September.

The new casino will eventually sit on the former Harrah's Gulfport Grand Casino's property. A temporary casino will open in the hotel in September.

Other casinos have had a harder time of it. Hard Rock Casino, which celebrated its grand opening only a few days before Katrina came ashore, remains closed. It will reopen sometime next year. The President Casino and Grand Casino Gulfport will not reopen.

The Silver Slipper is scheduled to reopen sometime this fall, and the Bacaran Bay Casino Resort, an all-suite hotel and condominium complex located on the gulf coast in Biloxi will be open sometime in 2008.

People will remember the pictures of casino barges washed ashore in Biloxi. The storm helped the casino industry persuade lawmakers to allow its casinos to be built on solid land.

Before the hurricane, casinos had to float, even though they weren't designed to go anywhere. Now the new and rebuilt casinos can be placed on solid land, but are still restricted to being near the water.

After Las Vegas and Atlantic City, the Mississippi coast has the third-most casinos in the country.

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