Gaming Commission considers Greenville Market

Tuesday, Sept. 16, 1997 | 8:31 a.m.

Joseph A. Yung, director of development for Columbia-Sussex, said his company has done its part in building infrastructure with a 115-room hotel for the Lighthouse Point Casino in Washington County. The commission has routinely required such investment.

"The other two casinos (in Greenville) seem to be skirting their responsibilities," he told the Gaming Commission Monday. "What I see up there is a house of cards ... there's not much money being spent."

Yung said the Lighthouse hotel is only half full most months because other casinos are not doing their part to make the area a destination resort.

"It's been set up so I'm being penalized for doing work required by the commission," he said.

Gaming Commission member Victor Smith noted that the market is small.

"I don't think any of them (casinos) are going to make it up there if they keep squabbling among themselves," he said.

"There's no way for us not to squabble up there," Yung responded.

Commission chairman Bill Gresham said the commission is aware of other casinos' failure to complete infrastructure projects and "has been on them and on them and on them."

"You want a level playing field," said Commission member Bob Engram.

Paul Harvey, executive director of the Gaming Commission, said the commission is preparing a report on the situation and will review it at an Oct. 23 meeting.

Meanwhile Monday, Hollywood Casino-Tunica received a two-year license renewal from the state Gaming Commission after detailing plans for a new shopping mall and hotel expansion.

Hollywood Casino Corp. chairman and CEO Jack Pratt told the commission he is confident about the market in Tunica County. He said gaming revenues there could reach $1.5 billion by the year 2000.

Hollywood Casino, which opened in 1994, now has 500 hotel rooms but plans to build 500 more in the short term and another 500 long term, Pratt said. He said the casino also is working on a 375,000-square-foot retail mall that will give an "added dimension" to the complex.

Pratt attributed the growth in Tunica County to what he said was a reasonable tax rate.

"The labor situation is favorable. The tax structure is favorable," he said. "Don't fix it if it isn't broken."

The casino executive warned that gambling will probably be coming soon to more nearby states and Mississippi has "a window for probably three years."

To prepare for the competition, Pratt advocated more infrastructure like a NASCAR-type race track and train-rail system connecting the Tunica casinos.