Skip to main content

Tunica reels as competition, recession hit casinos

By WTOP Staff

JEFF AMY
Associated Press

TUNICA RESORTS, Miss. (AP) — It was 3:30 p.m. on a Monday in May at Harrah’s Tunica Hotel & Casino in northwestern Mississippi.

Gamblers were few in number, and dealers stood ready at idle card tables.

It was easy to see why Caesars Entertainment Corp. was giving up on the 136,000 square-foot casino floor — the largest between New Jersey and Las Vegas. Harrah’s closed June 2 — 18 years after it first opened as the Grand Casino.

The Tunica Miracle — as boosters called the coming of gambling to what had been an isolated, economically moribund slice of the Mississippi Delta — is over. A boom that peaked with 13,000 jobs has slid into a struggle for survival.

The first casino opened on a riverboat docked at a remote river landing in 1992. With people lining up, more casinos came, building glitzy resorts in Tunica County’s northern end, as close to Memphis, Tennessee, as possible. In the first full year after Harrah’s began operation, casinos in Tunica County won $776 million from gamblers. The peak came in 2006, when revenue reached almost $1.2 billion.

But increased competition and a recession that drained patrons’ pocketbooks began to bite. In 2013, Tunica’s casinos took in about $700 million.

Employment has been more than halved since its peak in 2001, when Tunica County counted 13,000 workers in the gambling industry. After the last gambler left the purple-pattern carpet on the Harrah’s barge, so did about 1,000 jobs, dropping Tunica’s total to about 6,000.

Sabrina Johnson was a cook at Harrah’s for 16 years. She said she survived multiple rounds of layoffs but saw her hours shrink to less than 40 a week.

The 45-year-old Coahoma County resident is now looking for a new job, but says full-time options are scarce in Tunica and her home county, and she doubts she can equal the $13.80 an hour she was making at Harrah’s.

“I’ve still got to have some kind of income coming in,” Johnson said. “The bills aren’t going to stop.”

Casino owners and analysts are drawing parallels with New Jersey’s struggling casino center.

“Tunica looks and feels a lot like a market like Atlantic City,” said Caesars regional President R. Scott Barber.

Caesars, facing $23.6 billion in debt, said it wasn’t making enough money to run the sprawling 2,200-acre Harrah’s campus. It included more than 1,200 hotel rooms in three buildings, a golf course, a shooting range, an RV park and a kids arcade, knit together by a 24-hour bus system that connected Harrah’s with Caesars’ two other nearby casinos in Tunica County. Those properties — the Horseshoe Casino and Hotel and the Tunica Roadhouse Casino with their 1,800 jobs — stayed open. Caesars is investing $10 million in the renovation of the Horseshoe.

“We feel good about where we are,” Barber said. “We feel bad about the ultimate outcome, but it’s a good business decision for the long-term future of the company.”

But Harrah’s folding will make it harder for the Tunica community. Harrah’s has the largest convention facility in the market. Its closing will cut advertising revenue for the Tunica Convention & Visitors Bureau and local government will have less revenue to take care of the extensive infrastructure it built — including an airport, a fire department, and a public recreation center — when revenues surged with gambling.

Gambling tax revenue collected by Tunica County has already fallen from $47.3 million in 2006 to $28.3 million in 2013.

Leaders of other casinos aren’t sure if the decline will stop before more gambling halls close.

“Tunica, as a market, I don’t know if we’ve seen the bottom,” said Niklas Rytterstrom, the general manager of the Gold Strike, owned by MGM Resorts International, one of the market’s strongest players.

That’s in contrast to Mississippi’s Gulf Coast casino market, where declines have been shallower and casinos have actually been winning more from gamblers in recent months. That market, traditionally smaller than Tunica, is likely to see revenues surpass its northern neighbor with Harrah’s closure.

In the early days of Mississippi gambling, there was little competition, with patrons trekking from Oklahoma, Missouri and elsewhere. But those and many other states have casinos now. In recent years, competition has gotten even closer to home, with Southland Park Gaming and Racing in West Memphis, Arkansas, luring many traditional Tunica patrons. Southland won $142 million from gamblers last year, more than an average Tunica casino.

The recession has hurt, too. The number of casino visitors has fallen by two thirds since 2007. The number of visits from Mississippi patrons is down almost as steeply.

Caesars has been trying to sell Harrah’s for three years, and Barber said the company could split up the property, allowing a buyer to purchase only the casino and hotel tower on the Mississippi River side of the levee. Of the remaining eight casinos, three have been seized by lenders and are for sale — Resorts Tunica Casino, Bally’s Casino Tunica and The Fitz Casino & Hotel.

Webster Franklin of the Tunica Convention & Visitors Bureau preaches the need for Tunica to diversify tourism offerings. A 2011 study suggested attractions such as a water park, a family entertainment center, and a museum such as Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

“We have one industry,” Franklin said. “We need help to develop it.”

___

Follow Jeff Amy at: http://twitter.com/jeffamy

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Don’t Settle for Student Loans to Pay for Online Education

By WTOP Staff
Online college programs are becoming a more popular choice for prospective students, with one study finding that more than 6 million students enrolled in at least one online course in fall 2015. The popularity of these courses can be attributed in part to their flexibility with working adults' schedules, students' ability to progress more quickly through online programs and, oftentimes, cheaper tuition. [See 10 low-cost online bachelor's programs for out-of-state students.]Online degrees can be beneficial to many college students, but some studies have shown online learners complete their programs at lower rates than students at traditional brick-and-mortar campuses. Individuals with student loans but no degree comprise two-thirds of defaulted borrowers. Though these numbers are not encouraging, just like for traditional programs, there are ways to reduce how much you'll need to borrow for an online program to ensure you won't become one of these statistics. Don't just settle on borrowing student loans to cover the whole cost of your program and living expenses. Instead, start thinking about how to cut costs and cover your balance in different ways, such as the following. -- Grants and scholarships: Even though you are taking an online course, you can still apply and receive grants and scholarships. But your first step should be to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, commonly referred to as the FAFSA, which will allow you to receive a Pell Grant if your expected family contribution is low enough. The EFC criteria and award amounts are adjusted annually, but the 2017-2018 academic year awards range from $606 to $5,920, which could significantly lower the amount you borrow annually. Your next step is to apply for scholarships. You can start by checking online scholarship search engines, such as the Salt Scholarship Search, College Board's BigFuture and Peterson's. But don't forget to take advantage of local organizations and your school's financial aid office. Both may offer scholarships that you can't find with a national scholarship search. [Review these 10 sites to kick off your scholarship search.]For instance, organizations like the Elks Club, Knights of Columbus or the Rotary Club typically offer scholarships annually to local students. Just because you're going to school online doesn't mean you're ineligible. Visit your local library for scholarship listings, and ask around town. You might be surprised how many local organizations offer scholarships. While these scholarships typically aren't large, every little bit counts. Each dollar you receive in a scholarship is a dollar you don't have to borrow and pay interest on. -- Work-study: Another option for online students may be work-study awards. Not all students enrolled in online programs are eligible, but students at some schools -- including, for example, SUNY Empire State College and Liberty University -- are. Work-study awards are not given upfront like scholarships and grants. In most cases, they are an offer to earn up to the awarded amount if you secure an eligible work-study job. While there is a misconception that all work-study jobs must be on campus, students can work for off-campus, nonprofit or public employers as long as the work is in the public's interest. You may be able to work for a for-profit employer if the job is relevant to your course of study. No matter who the outside employer is, it will need to have an established agreement with your college for you to receive work-study funds. Remember, to be eligible for federal financial aid, you must be enrolled and pursuing a degree or certificate. If you're not working toward a credential, Pell Grants and work-study won't be option, but you may still be able to take advantage of private scholarships -- just be sure to read the eligibility criteria carefully. [Explore what to know about financial aid in online programs.]-- Pay as you go: One of the great benefits to enrolling online is the flexible schedule, which can allow you to complete your college coursework around your responsibilities. But prospective students often overlook using their part- or full-time job earnings as an option for paying for college. Almost 80 percent of college students in 2015 worked at least part time while attending classes, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. By budgeting and thinking strategically about your college costs, you can likely reduce your dependence on student loans by paying a portion out of pocket. Many -- but not all -- online programs are less expensive than traditional programs and often have shorter payment periods. Six, eight or 10 weeks are common course durations. Because of the frequency of payments in an online setting, you may be well-placed to pay as you go and possibly avoid borrowing altogether. Attending college online and avoiding student loans may be challenging, but if you are willing to put in the effort, you can limit the amount you need to borrow. More from U.S. News Q&A: Understanding Student Loan Discharge Eligibility Student Loan Refinancing Isn't Right for All Borrowers
Read Next Story

Related News

Frustration grows in Venezuela as earthquake death toll reaches 1,430

Israel and Lebanon sign framework agreement with US in ‘first step’ toward peace, Rubio says

Trump-endorsed populist poised to become Colombia’s next president as rival challenges vote