Too Much of a Gamble? - Reid Cater

While living in the NOLA area this summer I have been continually surprised by the prevalence of gambling. From other trips I remembered some small casinos along the water, but as the weeks have gone by I have noticed video poker in nearly every restaurant and bar as well as Harrah's Casino, a new and extravagant casino right beside the French Quarter. Even more surprisingly most of the people gambling seem to be locals. The NYT article here draws interesting insights into why gambling has become so popular for locals after Katrina.

First the obvious: insurance money and higher wages have given people money to spend.
Second: Katrina destroyed not only housing, health care, and public service infrastructure but also local entertainment options.

People who would have once spent free nights in a bowling alley or at a local bar now turn to the casinos as the only available form of entertainment. This combination of factors seems likely to lead to tragedy for those who let gambling go past entertainment and leave their only chance to rebuild sitting on a roulette table.

Casinos Boom in Katrina's Wake

By GARY RIVLIN

Published: July 16, 2007

BILOXI, Miss. — This seaside gambling resort along a stretch of the Gulf Coast, sometimes called the “redneck Riviera,” has 40 percent fewer hotel rooms and only two-thirds as many slot machines as it did before Hurricane Katrina. A major bridge that connects the casinos in this popular tourist destination to Alabama, the Florida Panhandle and other points east remains closed, and Mayor A. J. Holloway estimates that as many as 15 percent of the city’s pre-Katrina residents still have not returned.

Yet business in the gambling halls of Biloxi has reached all-time highs in recent months, so much so that Larry Gregory, the executive director of the Mississippi Gaming Commission, has half-jokingly barred his staff from uttering the phrase “record-setting” because “it was becoming too redundant.”

A similar story has been unfolding in New Orleans, where tourism is still in the doldrums and only 60 percent of the pre-Katrina population has returned nearly two years after the hurricane and flooding devastated the area.

Indeed, the casinos there seem to be faring even better than their Gulf Coast cousins.

Harrah’s New Orleans, the largest casino in the city, is on pace for its best year ever: gambling revenue is up 13.6 percent through the first five months of 2007 compared with the same period in 2005, pre-Katrina.

The casinos in this region are generating more revenue — from significantly fewer players — in large part because of the extra money that many area residents have in their pockets and fewer alternatives on where to spend it, casino executives and others in the region say.

(Full article here)