Bobby Mahoney is Biloxi; he is also a charismatic southerner with a gift for gab. Some locals refer to him as the unofficial mayor of town. He was born and raised here, he has worked at his mother's restaurant, Mary Mahoney's, since he was 17 years old, and he now owns the joint. The place is famous for its hospitality and hearty seafood dishes. They have served presidents, tourists, locals, celebrities, and everyone in between since 1964. The restaurant is even mentioned in multiple John Grisham novels. I his spare time, Mahoney also plays some poker, as well. Although this usually consists of Sunday night sessions at the Beau Rivage (right across the street), he was able to win his way into the
World Poker Tour Gulf Coast Championship through a $500 satellite.
Card Player spoke with this "quote machine" down in Biloxi during a break in the action at the
WPT event, and Mahoney painted a rich picture of gambling's past, present, and future on the Gulf Coast.
Card Player: Tell us about your upbringing in Biloxi?
Bobby Mahoney: I grew up here, and Biloxi has always been a wide-open town. In 1965, we had gambling all up and down the beach, and I asked my mother if I could go deal dice. She said "Yeah, I guess so, but what am I going to tell all of the old ladies that come in here to the restaurant? Surely I can't tell them that my son's a craps dealer. I'll tell them you're a crew P.A. They won't know what the hell that is, anyway."
CP: What games would you play back then?
BM: Mostly we played seven-card stud and five-card stud back then. You know Texas hold'em, nobody played that around here. Another big game was bourré; that's a Louisiana game that has to do with tricks. I tell everybody that when we voted for gambling on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Biloxi and Gulfport were sister cities. Well, Biloxi voted
for gambling 65 percent and Gulfport voted against. And somebody said, "Why is that?" I said, "We have seven of them in Biloxi and two of them in Gulfport." Do you know what that was?
CP: No, I don't. Seven what?
BM: Catholic Parishes; so, when somebody said "gambling" they didn't say "no," they said "where at?"
CP: Has there ever been any opposition to the gambling?
BM: When we were fighting a gambling issue, a good priestly friend told me that nothing god created is sinful, only the abuse of it. Money's not a sin, food's not a sin, and drug's aren't a sin, but if you abuse them, they're all sins, so, everything in moderation.
CP: How has gambling helped the community?
BM: Of course we were dead in the water before gambling. Our number one export was brains; you got smart, you got the hell out of here quick. You know what our number one import is now? Money!
CP: What do you think about the
WPT stop in Biloxi?
BM: I hope the
World Poker Tour is real satisfied with the tournament. Of course, I think that all of the people here are real satisfied … I think they're really enjoying it.
CP: Is the town of Biloxi back, yet?
BM: You know, Biloxi's not really back, yet. When we get that Ocean Springs Bridge open to get the traffic flowing in and get a few other things built, then we'll be on our way.
CP: Tell me about your restaurant?
BM: My business, we've been here since 1964. My mother opened it up in '64 and I was 17 when she opened it up. I'm normally there every night, but, of course, I got a chance to win $750,000, so I figured I'd take a shot at it. My ill-spent youth is coming back to me.
CP: How important was the casino industry, not only to the town, but also to small business owners?
BM: My business has tripled; it ain't even close. These things are economic utopias. I tell everybody that one casino employee is equivalent to 50 Nissan workers. We've got a Nissan plant up in Jackson, where the state gave them cash and in-kind services, and they're going to give them half a billion dollars over the next 10 years. Just this place, the Beau Rivage, will probably pay $700 million in taxes. So, which one would you rather have? These things are economic utopias, and we've got three or four more big projects on the drawing board. We're in the people business, you know what I mean? And the more traffic we get, the more we like it. Biloxi used to be in defense spending, Keesler [Air Force Base], and then the seafood industry. Well, the seafood industry has pretty much gone away, and you don't want to get your economy based on defense spending, because they can bust that out at any minute. So, it's best to diversify, and that's what we did. We were a tourist town without tourists before gambling, so we knew we had to do something different.
CP: How did gambling come to be?
BM: I'll tell you how gambling came to be … Governor Mabus had a special session of the legislature in the summer of 1990. We got dockside gambling on the agenda. You know what the definition of land-based gambling is? The ability to come and go freely … and all of these things are economic dreams. And if you've got enough money, you can make dreams come true. I thanked Governor Mabus about seven or eight years later when he was through here. He said, 'People told me they were fearful that organized crime might show up.' And then he said, 'I was looking for
anything organized to show up."
CP: Any closing thoughts?
BM: We pull in people from Georgia and Florida that we've never pulled in before, you know what I mean? And, of course, that allows people to see Biloxi and how nice it is. Our city administration embraces the casino industry; we know it's our bread and butter, and so we know what's going on."
