New Orleans university cashing in on fears of gambling expansion in Mississippi

Jack Elliott Jr

Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2001 | 9:47 a.m.

JACKSON, Miss. -- Nearly 10 years after the first dockside casino opened in Mississippi, the Magnolia State continues to struggle with its image as the third largest gambling Mecca in the country.

Local communities where casinos are located and Mississippi government love the pot of money gambling produces annually. Yet, those beneficiaries lament gambling's evils and its influences on Mississippi society.

It is no little thing then that Tulane University of New Orleans comes to the Gulf Coast to offer gaming-related courses.

Casino gambling became legal in Mississippi after lawmakers pledged to religious organizations that it would not expand beyond the coastal and Mississippi River counties.

Religious and anti-gambling crusaders took that to mean all things gaming.

That promise -- and the threat of reprisals at the voting booth -- have yielded few changes in Mississippi gaming law.

Casinos and higher education have lobbied lawmakers to authorize gaming management courses at senior and junior colleges.

Casinos have argued they bring in managers from Las Vegas, Reno or Atlantic City because local folks don't have the training. The universities and junior colleges have wanted to cash in on what they believe would be a lucrative venture, which casinos at one time agreed to finance.

The Mississippi House has passed bills to allow colleges to offer the courses. Those bills have died in the Senate.

In the past two years, Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck has opposed the legislation in the Senate. There is no indication her opposition will change.

Tulane will open a branch campus at Edgewater Mall in Biloxi in the fall and may begin offering casino industry courses in January 2003. The courses will center on management practices.

Tulane officials have said they are filling a void for gaming-related training. It is likely Tulane knows a money-maker when it sees it.

Many opponents -- including the Mississippi Baptist Convention and the American Family Association -- are convinced the courses will teach college students how to play blackjack, craps or roulette in training them to be dealers.

There is some truth to that. If you are going to deal it, you've got to know how the game is played. If you are going to manage a casino, you've got to know how the games are played.

"I know that's not what (the casinos) want. What they want are people in culinary art and resort development, those sorts of things that are specific to the industry," Sen. Terry Burton, D-Newton, in whose committee the legislation died in the 2000 and 2001 sessions, said recently.

Burton said the problem is a lack of education among what he calls the "coffee shop crowd" as to what is being proposed for casino courses.

The attitude of opponents angers some in the Legislature, especially in the House where every bill passed has been described as watered down to satisfy some foe.

The most recent bill passed by the House -- and killed by the Senate -- would have allowed casino courses to be taught only in counties where gambling is legal. Even then, the courses would have to be approved by state higher education boards.

The bill's author has said the problem is more basic.

"My problem is that we can't get away from the word casino," said Rep. Diane Peranich, D-Pass Christian.