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Casino Reopen after Katrina Strom
The Palace had a rather low down key opening. Less than 100 people stood outside this casino, waiting for an invitation to re-enter this property. Before the tornado, the casino was on a barge. Now, it's in the hotel lobby. Larry Gregory is the gaming commission's decision-making director. "You have the same slot machines, same board games. It's just on land instead of on water," he said. Gregory was at the Palace Casino to make sure its post-Katrina reopening went off without a catch. "It's different," he said, referring to regulating an on shore casino, "because of the circumstances."
The conditions have all to do with Hurricane Katrina. Her rage destroyed parts of every south Mississippi gambling clubs. The ones with the least amount of damage are being rebuilt first. So, the Palace is the third casino to reopen in eight days. It's the second to move its slot machines on shore. Palace General Manager Keith Crosby spent part of September in Jackson, lobbying lawmakers for the chance to move casinos off shore, and away from the straight path of hurricanes.
"What we were asking for was to be able to deliver this," he said. What the Palace created is a smaller version of what Crosby's company had on his barge. Designers twisted hotel lobby space and gathering rooms into two floors of gambling action.
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