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Bloomberg) The entrance to Caesars Entertainment Corp.’s Harrah’s Tunica, Mississippi’s largest casino, is under seven feet of water. At the Rainbow Casino Hotel in Vicksburg, a dozen workers stacked sandbags to try to protect the building from the swollen Mississippi River.
“All these casinos and hotels along the river are going to have problems with alligators and snakes,” said Alicia Brooks, a Vicksburg retail store worker, as she watched.
Slot machines and blackjack tables have gone silent as floods have shut 17 of Mississippi’s 19 river-based casinos in the U.S.’s third-largest gaming-employment market, jeopardizing thousands of jobs and $13 million a month in taxes. Flooding will slow the recovery from a recession two years ago, which was already lagging behind the U.S., said Sohini Chowdhury, an economist with Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
“There is no doubt that the casino closures will weigh on the state’s recovery,” Chowdhury said. “A month of inactivity would deprive the already cash-strapped local and state governments of critical funds.” ............(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-12/snakes-alligators-endanger-shuttered-casinos.html