Top Ten Casinos and Racinos in the Southeast: Part 1

We visited all 74 casinos and racinos in the southeastern states during calendar year 2015.  Our Top Ten listing is again based on our observations, the patrons, food and beverage areas and service, mood, professional appearance actions of the casino staff members, and the operations from a patron point of view. Overall, it is just how did we feel about the place, the excitement factor, the size and excitement of the crowd factor – were they enjoying their visit, the entertainment factor, the “will I, and will the other patrons come back here” factor. 

10. L’Auberge, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

In spite of increased competition from the Lake Charles Region, this complex had another outstanding year with gaming revenues up 19% and market share up 42% over 2014. The facility’s fabulous architecture and structure and Mississippi River shore location combine to give it a huge “wow” factor. The 205-story hotel has a top floor open pool area and fitness center overlooking fabulous sunsets on the Mississippi River. They have a huge gaming area, 5 restaurants and live entertainment in their music bar and at their 1,400 seat entertainment center, “Live.”

9. Gulfstream Park, Hallandale/Fort Lauderdale, Florida

We featured Gulfstream Park here last year. This is one of the best thoroughbred racetrack in the United States coupled with a great little casino.  Each year this one gets better and more exciting. While there are no table games, the 2-story casino has 850 slots and numerous simulcast areas. The fabulous paddock and racetrack design is woven into an exceptional and significant upper-end retail shopping area with more than 20 restaurants and bars. It’s a great day of south Florida entertainment. 

8. Margaritaville Resort and Casino, Bossier City, Louisiana

We first featured this facility on our blog in 2014. The complex has been a winner since its opening in 2013, and last year the success continued with gaming revenues up 12%. The complex includes a hotel, large spa and gaming floor housing 1,300 slots and 46 table games all integrating the Margaritaville theme. Their second floor open-air pool bar area overlooking the Red River with loads of room for live entertainment. The complex also includes a 900-seat Performance Hall featuring an outstanding calendar of top named entertainment.

7. Oaklawn Racetrack and Casino, Hot Springs, Arkansas

Oaklawn is new to our Top Ten list, although it has been one of the premier thoroughbred racetracks in the US since 1904. Located in Hot Springs National Park, it is best known as the home of the $1 Million Arkansas Derby. Trainers, jockeys and betters alike know that Oaklawn host a disproportionate number of champions and horses of the year including one of the greatest 3 year olds to race at Oaklawn in 2015, Triple Crown Winner American Pharoah. In addition to this great racetrack facility, Oaklawn houses a casino with a variety of gaming terminals. The gaming area was expanded by 50% in 2015 and now includes a high limits area as well as hundreds of new games, live blackjack and poker plus video poker, roulette and craps. The food services now include the new Silks Bar and Pop’s Lounge along with several other eating areas and bars. It is a great place to visit, even better if it’s a race day.

6. The IP Casino Resort and Spa, Biloxi, Mississippi

The IP complex is new to our top ten list. It’s owned and operated by Boyd Gaming (BYD), one of the top rated U.S. casino and resort companies. The IP Hotel and Spa is a winner of the AAA Four-Diamond award. The 32-story tower facility has over 1,000 hotel rooms and suites and a roof-top pool and lounge available to hotel guests. The gaming area houses 1,900 slots, 60+ table games and a 14-table non-smoking poker room. Their restaurants include two AAA Four-Diamond award winners Thirty-Two with prime steaks and seafood plus Tien with upscale Asian cuisine. Their Costa Cucina Italian restaurant has earned the AAA Three-Diamond award. IP also provides a 1,400-seat theater offering regular headline entertainment and 73,000 square feet of meeting and conference space. We’re pleased to add the IP to our Top Ten 2015 list.  

Next week, we'll reveal our top 5 for 2015, stay tuned! 

New Jersey Hearing Tomorrow Could Affect the Future of DFS

Daily fantasy sports (DFS) sites allow punters to wager on the success of teams they’ve created. Simple, right? Not so fast. DFS sites have been confronted with a miasma of issues over their basic legality. Is DFS sports betting? Or perhaps para-mutuel betting? Is it based on skill or luck? Who decides, the state or federal government? And then who governs it? The root of the problem goes back to decades-old laws established before the emergence of the internet, and the insufficiency of those laws is glaringly evident in the DFS question. 

Legislators across the U.S. struggle with the concepts and legalities of the convergence of sports betting, daily fantasy sports, skill-based gaming and I-gaming. And New Jersey’s hearing on February 17^th is likely to have an effect beyond state borders. Here’s the lowdown on the current state of DFS:

Sports Betting – Is currently controlled by PASBA, the Professional Amateur Sports Protection Act passed by U.S. Congress in 1992. The Act effectively outlaws all sports betting with an exception of licensed sports pools in Nevada and sports lotteries in Oregon, Montana and Delaware. Congress provided a one-year window of opportunity (until January 1, 1993) for states that had operated licensed casino gaming for the previous ten year period to pass laws permitting sports wagering.  This exception was clearly crafted with New Jersey in mind; New Jersey failed to take advantage of the opportunity.  Now, 23 years later they have taken their case to court to re-gain sports betting licensing. Their case is scheduled for hearing February 17^th of this year.  The case is against the professional sports leagues that want to stop New Jersey from allowing sports betting. 

The ruling on this case will likely set the future path for legislation on sports betting and fantasy sports betting throughout the US. A win by New Jersey would also be a win for Pennsylvania, Delaware, and the US Virgin Islands, all three in the same court jurisdiction as New Jersey. Other states including California have also expressed an interest by beginning public hearings on legalizing sports betting. A loss by New Jersey can be a damaging blow to fantasy sports.

Fantasy Sports – Beginning with the basics, participants in daily fantasy sports and sports-season long gaming.  Participants in fantasy sports assemble teams of athletes from a range of clubs in a given sport – with football being the most popular – and earn points based on the athletes’ subsequent games. They pay entry fees and can earn cash. Last year illegal insider activities between two major companies, FanDuel and DraftKing brought the concept of fantasy sports to the attention of regulators and lawmakers. Now lawmakers throughout the US have been handed this “hot potato” to determine whether it is legal or not.

To add to the complexity, each state must decide on the legality of DFS within their state. And each state’s laws define gambling differently. But New Jersey's decision could affect other states' decisions. 

So a number of questions arise:  Does fantasy sports betting violate state gaming laws?  Does it violate PASPA federal law?   Is season long legal and daily fantasy sports illegal?  If it is legal how does each state regulate it, or is the need to have a consumer protection oversight versus extensive regulatory oversight?

Skill-Based Games and Gaming:

Skill-based gaming is at the forefront of discussions among legislators, state gaming commissioners and control boards, casino operators and owners, and gaming equipment regulators.   As we have discussed, the concept of skill-based is at the heart of fantasy sports. It is equally discussed as a concept for casino equipment play.  With skill-based casino games, electronic gambling machines that offer players an element of skill are seen as important to capturing the next generation of casino players who have grown up playing sophisticated games. The discussion is at the heart of tapping into the Millennial- age group. 

What will New Jersey decide tomorrow, and will it affect the outcome nationally? We'll look into these issues in more depth in the coming weeks. 

The Coushatta Tribe Traditions: Interview with Cultural Consultant Leland Thomson

Leland Thompson is a cultural consultant for the Tribe’s social services department. Thompson recalls being taught disciplinary sayings about proper ways to behave, including how to treat others and the natural world. He never learned the specific reasons for their importance, but adhered to many during his wife’s first pregnancy. Watching movies with violent content and walking across wires, for instance, was prohibited. “Our elders told us what we can’t do, but they wouldn’t tell us why. And then I started going back and asking, and they said, ‘Well it’s just discipline.’ Questioning an elder would be questioning an authority figure, so it would be disrespectful. But I explained to them why we need to know, because so many of the reasons are being lost.”

Whether or not the reasons are clear, Thompson, like most of the Tribal members, still honors the Tribe’s traditions. When his daughter, Gwyneth, was four months old, the family held a predawn hair shaving ceremony. “It’s the last rite of cleansing from the mother’s womb,” he explains. The baby’s hair is “the last part of the mother on the child,” and the ceremony is “the time you decide what you want your baby to be interested in. Whatever you think will help your baby in the future is placed under the child, and it’s also a gift to the child.” Thompson placed under Gwyneth a Bible, a dictionary and a river-cane basket he had just learned to make.  Other gifts included eagle feathers for dancing. Though tradition holds that the child’s uncle should perform the shaving, Gweneth has no uncles. His grandmother shaved Gwyneth just as she had shaved Leland when he was four months old but had no uncles. “The hair is taken up and kept,” he says. “It came from the baby.  You put it somewhere in your house.  You can’t throw it away because the baby still needs it. In its own way, it gets lost. It makes its way out.”

Just as their language and their culture are important aspect of Coushatta are important to them, so is their heritage of agriculture. The Koasati were traditionally agriculturists growing a variety of maize, beans, squash and other vegetables. The tribe carries on the tradition with extensive farming and ranching including the farming of rice, soybeans and crawfish plus horse and cattle ranching and a Christmas tree farm.

Their heritage is shown too through their community structure. Their community of today reflects the older forms of building of culture by maintaining their traditional disbursed forms as the Koasati-Creek have done. Their church ball field complex became the center of their disbursed population, which later gave way in part to a tribal center-ball field complex. This center clearly corresponds to the traditional hothouses of the Creeks and their neighbors. The Coushatta have maintained their traditional values while modifying the architectural forms. The symbolic value of socio-religious center with a public building and a ball field to the west has persisted.

Their value of entrepreneurship has been a core strength of their existence. Their modern-day enterprise beginning with the 1965 tribal arts and crafts business followed by their successful efforts to achieve state then federal recognition in 1973, their drive toward independence through farming and ranching all laid groundwork for the 1995 establishment of their casino gaming and resort. Today they own and operate The Grand Casino Coushatta Resort, one of the largest gaming and resort complexes in east of the Mississippi River. This successful enterprise has enabled the Tribe to expand its farming and cultural programs and assist in providing significant housing, health care and cultural projects for their citizens.