Has gambling in Tunica County, Mississippi been a success or a failure? Casinos opened in the 1990s in this economically challenged region, when the county had a poverty rate of 56 percent—now it’s 27.9 percent—and an unemployment rate of more than 20 percent—now 10.7 percent. As eight casinos opened on former cotton fields, they brought the promise of jobs and prosperity.
Tunica County officials said the gaming industry has been a success. Although gaming tax revenue has declined in recent years–the county collects a 4 percent tax on local casino revenue–casinos made investment in critical infrastructure possible, allowing the county to attract more companies and broaden its economy. Webster Franklin, president and chief executive officer of the Tunica Convention and Visitors Bureau, said thanks to the casinos, the county could upgrade its roads, water and sewer systems, improve local schools, and build a golf course, Tunica Arena and Expo Center and recreation center.
“The citizens of this area had other employment opportunities and we grew tremendously because the casinos provided an infrastructure that we are still to this day seeing an advantage of. If it doesn’t look like it’s been here for 100 years, it was developed 20 years ago. The saying is, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day.’ If we grow over the next 20 years as we have the last 20 years, it will be a better place than it is today,” Franklin said.
Mil Duncan, a fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire, noted, “For 15 years, there was around $40 million a year coming into the county. The whites were in control of the politics and the spending of that $40 million. They invested in infrastructure–better roads, the airport.” Tunica County’s population is 10,343, and more than 75 percent are black. Only recently a black person, James Dunn, was elected to the governing Board of Supervisors.
Duncan said black leaders preferred to use casino tax revenue to provide job training and education. “The problems are so deeply racially politicized. The history of Tunica is for social isolation for African Americans. The white leadership wouldn’t have thought about addressing poverty, per se. They were thinking economic development, not capital development and helping those who are poor to escape poverty.”
Duncan noted after the casinos opened, the county’s poverty and unemployment rates dropped, due to residents and newcomers taking casino jobs and settling in the area. “The opportunities for employment for those who could take it was dramatic,” Duncan said.
But Tunica’s casino industry has been declining. In 2014, Harrah’s Tunica Hotel and Casino closed, resulting in the loss of more than 1,000 jobs. Casino revenue from the Mississippi region including Tunica has dropped from about $1.6 billion in 2006 to $950 million in 2015, according to
the Mississippi Gaming Commission. Said Dunn, “We only have about half the jobs we had at one time.” With gambling and revenue generated, we were able to build infrastructure that was attractive to outside industry. But now we’ve got to do more.”
