Word: tunica
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...plight is more than just a bit of local promotion gone haywire. It is a direct result of the gambling industry's frenzied competition for players at a time when saturated markets are putting sharp downward pressure on gaming companies' earnings. In overbuilt markets like Atlantic City, N.J., Tunica, Miss., and St. Louis, Mo., the ability to win now the real, revenue-generating gamblers from the $50-a-day dilettantes has become nothing less than a matter of survival...
...local jurisdictions that have adopted gambling show these so-called models to be totally unreliable and inaccurate. Once depressed communities are now enjoying economic growth and prosperity. For example, in Joliet, Illinois, the industry employs approximately 4,000 people with an annual payroll of $86 million, and in Tunica, Mississippi, 10,000 people with an annual payroll of $220 million. These jobs have helped reduce the demand on state and local governments for social-service assistance. Since 1992 Tunica has experienced a 29% drop in the number or residents receiving welfare payments. In New Jersey the Aid to Families with...
...recent landing in Mississippi, however, the road-warrior reverend found his path strewn with obstacles. Few states have embraced gambling so wholeheartedly. Since 1992, when the first riverboat casino floated down the Mississippi River to Tunica, the desperately poor county that Jesse Jackson once called "America's Ethiopia," 28 casinos have sprung up from the Tennessee border to the Gulf Coast. These garish palaces employ 27,300 people and last year put $189 million into state and local coffers. "Hey, look, Tom Grey, gaming is working here in Mississippi!" declares host Rip Daniels, welcoming Grey to his talk show...
...from Arkansas to Oregon, to place pro-gambling initiatives on the November ballot. The domino effect puts pressure on elected officials: Pennsylvania and Maryland racetracks watch their dollars drain into Delaware, which installed slot machines last September at two tracks; Tennessee envies the tax revenue reaped by Mississippi's Tunica County, thanks to Memphis gamblers; and New York is readying a constitutional amendment that will allow its slot hogs--who are now flocking to the Pequot Indians' Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut--to spend their money at home. Meanwhile, Fahrenkopf has begun to rally not just casino companies but also suppliers...
...across the South, phone in bomb threats and even distribute a wanted poster with his picture on it: notorious!! Working six days a week, his only real diversions are playing golf and spending each Tuesday night playing blackjack and craps at the Splash Casino on the Mississippi over in Tunica County...