Casino mogul Steven Wynn opened the Beau Rivage Resort & Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi in 1999 for $750 million—at the time the largest investment ever made in the state. It offered 2,000 slots and 80 table games, plus 1,740 hotel rooms, a dozen restaurants, a yacht marina, health spa, upscale retail and a glass atrium with mature magnolia trees; they didn’t grow well and had to be removed. The property employed more than 4,000 people; it now employs around 3,000.
At the time Wynn said, “We’re not in the gambling business. We’re in the recreation business. It’s the entertainment that gives the place its life.” Wynn sold the Beau Rivage and Mirage one year later to what is now MGM Resorts International.
To mark the property’s 20th birthday, the Beau Rivage held a day-long celebration on Saturday, March 16, including a St. Patrick’s Day parade, entertainment, speeches by Governor Phil Bryant and Biloxi Mayor Andrew “FoFo” Gilich, fireworks and an enormous birthday cake.
The Coast casino market grew from $814 million in 1998 to more than 1 billion for the first time in 1999, a 27 percent increase in just one year. The market continued to grow every year until Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005. It took exactly one year to reopen the Beau Rivage following the hurricane’s devastation.
Beau Rivage Chief Financial Officer Paul Heard said, “This past year was the first year the property ever broke the $100 million EBITDA threshold.” He attributed that to the property’s sports book, one of the state’s first two, which opened last August 1.
Heard noted, “The majority of our revenue comes from out-of-state visitors.” Every year, the property brings about 100,000 people from 80-90 cities to South Mississippi aboard Sun Country Airlines, making it the second largest carrier at the airport. That’s “by necessity,” Heard said, noting it takes creativity to fill all those hotel rooms on the Biloxi shore.
