Tunica Casino Enforcement
There are several levels of security set up to ensure safety and compliance for Tunica casinos. Among these are the security department within the establishment, the Mississippi Gaming Commission Tunica Field Office and the Tunica County Sheriff’s Office.
At Horseshoe Casino in Tunica, approximately 100 people are employed in the security department. Staff members also receive assistance from the technology installed throughout the grounds.
“Our technology is based on three main priorities: protecting the employees, protecting the guests or protecting the physical property,” TU2 Security Manager Jason Williams said. “In all three cases we would consider those company assets.”
Among technology used are key trackers, ID and fingerprint scanners and cameras. Cameras are designed to be undetectable and their whereabouts kept secret.
“It would be what we would consider proprietary, so to discuss the number of cameras we have on the casino floor or what the cameras see or to discuss whether or not we use undercover agents or to discuss daily routines of the individuals could give you an opportunity to manipulate areas that we may be weak in to perpetrate a crime against the casino,” Williams said.
The Horseshoe Casino Security Department works closely with the Mississippi Gaming Commission and the Tunica County Sheriff’s Department.
“I actually employ deputies for various events, much like most law enforcement officers who subcontract out,” Williams said, “depending on the event we would subcontract out Tunica County as well.”
The security department takes whatever steps necessary to ensure the success of its ultimate goal, which is securing the well being of its visitors.
“There’s a variety of reasons that my staff is here to include obviously the general safety of all the people that come onto the property,” said Williams, “as well as ensure that the individuals that are here are of proper age to be here, and there is a perception that casinos have an abundance of money and therefore we have to protect that.”
Another individual that the Horseshoe Security Department deals with on a daily basis is a gaming agent from the Mississippi Gaming Commission Tunica Field Office.
Gaming agents work for the state to perform a variety of audits for the property to ensure that it is operating within the approved guidelines of the gaming regulations as well as those of Tunica County. They also investigate complaints and disputes filed by patrons.
“A lot of times people assume we’re in cahoots with the casino when that’s actually not true,” Gaming Commission Division Director Patricia Johnson said. “We’re here to help and listen.”
The Tunica Field Office, which is made up of an enforcement division and a compliance division, is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and is comprised of 11 agents.
While complaints are not uncommon, the most frequent cases agents deal with are dealer-patron collusion and employee embezzlement. The field office averages one arrest every month, but that number often increases around holiday time.
“It goes in spurts, usually from October to January,” said field agent Scott Kistler. “Because of the holidays people tend to need money more so they tend to take money out of their cash drawers.”
The Tunica County Field Office has a specific list of responsibilities when dealing with local casinos. Issues that the field office is not responsible for are handled by the sheriff’s office. These lesser issues might include a small theft, a domestic dispute in the hotel or rape or murder.
“We’ve never butted heads as far as the jurisdiction,” Kistler said. “We work very well with the sheriff’s office.”
The sheriff’s office is another level of safety that frequently gets called in to make arrests after the casino security calls to report a problem.
“There are security rooms where they place people until law enforcement gets there,” said Bettye Hale, Executive Administrative Assistant at the Tunica County Sheriff’s Office. “Normally the sheriff’s department has different zones and there are officers in that zone that respond to the calls in that area, so they don’t have to come all the way from the station, and they’re there within just a few minutes.”
Officers may be called in for any number of reasons, including bar fights, casino robberies or removal of persons not allowed on the casino’s property.
Other crime reports often take longer to uncover. An example of this is prostitution, which requires officers more time and patience.
“They’ll set up situations and the officer will be under cover, and when the women request money and that type of thing they’ll go in and make the bust,” said Hale. “This will go on for a while and they have to be very careful because they don’t know who they are exactly.”
One of the most common type of calls officers receive are those related to the deaths of older casino visitors who expire during their visit.
“When you think about it, a lot of senior citizens are retired and they’re just going to have a good time and they expire,” said Hale. “That’s pretty common.”
In all cases, effective communication with casino security and trust that each branch will do their job solidifies the safety of the casino environment.
“I think the security and surveillance people are so good at what they do that they catch a lot of that before,” said Hale.
(Clancy Smith, Caroline Callaway, Alane Parris)
ECONOMIC EFFECT
Despite a series of setbacks to the gaming industry in Tunica, Miss., what was once the poorest county in the nation has benefitted greatly from the arrival of casinos in 1994.
Brooke Taylor, former alderman for Tunica County and current publisher of the Tunica Times newspaper, remembers when Jesse Jackson called Tunica “America’s Ethiopia.”
“It’s a rags to riches story for us,” Taylor said. “People’s lives have really improved in so many ways.”
Many may argue that “rags to riches” is an understatement. Webster Franklin, president and CEO of the Tunica Convention and Visitors’ Bureau, can recall when there was nothing in his town.
“In 1994, there was not one stretch of four-lane road in Tunica, Miss.,” Franklin said. “In 1994, there were 20 hotel rooms in Tunica, Miss.”
A year later, however, things had changed.
“In 1995 we grew to be the largest gaming destination in the country,” Franklin said. According to him, the gaming industry has created over 2.5 billion dollars in tax revenue, from Tunica alone, to the state of Mississippi over a 20 year time period. In addition, it has built infrastructure, a road system, an airport, an arena, and many other businesses.
Those businesses have thrived. Cliff Nash, executive director of the Tunica Airport, said that in 2010, “Tunica was the third (distant) busiest airport [in Mississippi] behind Jackson and Gulfport-Biloxi in commercial boardings.”
Because of such success, Franklin claims that casinos’ influence in Tunica is outstanding.
“There has been no place in Mississippi that has had a greater impact because of gaming than right here in Tunica, Miss,” Franklin said. “And, I would submit to you, than in many parts of the country.”
Unfortunately, today Tunica isn’t thriving as it once was. Franklin attributes much of the change to the saturated economy.
“When Mississippi allowed gaming in the Gaming Control Act of 1990, Americans could gamble in Atlantic City, and they could gamble in Nevada,” he said. “Today, all but two states in the U.S. have some sort of gaming, and every American is within a 2 and a half hour drive of a casino. That’s why you’ve seen a 1.2 billion dollar a year industry that employed 16,000 people here in Tunica drop to a 600 million dollar industry and employs about 8,000.”
According to Taylor, a natural disaster in 2011 has also contributed to the decline.
“We’ve just had a little downturn, particularly since the flood, that changed people’s perceptions about Tunica because we had to close for a while,” she said. “Some people went other places, and they haven’t come back.”
Cliff Nash, executive director of Tunica Airport, also felt the affects of the flood.
“The Flood that closed all the casinos back in 2011 was catastrophic,” he said. “Unlike the Mississippi coast after Katrina, the state has made no allowances for the Tunica casinos and provisions for them to relocate their establishments in the event of another flood; as we all know will happen again.”
Even more recently than the flood of 2011, however, Tunica has taken yet another hit. Harrah’s casino, owned by Caesar’s Entertainment, the largest gaming corporation in the world, according to Franklin, closed in June of 2014.
“The Harrah’s closure is something that I think many people thought would never happen,” Franklin said. “They closed here in Tunica three hotels that consisted of 1,350 hotel rooms, an 18 hole golf course, a 45,000 square foot convention center, the Willow Sporting Clay range, an RV park, a KidsQuest, 145,000 square feet of gaming and 5 restaurants, so the hit to the Tunica/north Mississippi market has been pretty steep because of it.”
For Nash, Harrah’s closing had multi-faceted significance. In June of this year, when it was announced that Harrah’s would close, the Airport lost approximately 64 percent of the total number of charter flights that were coming into Tunica,” he said. “Overall, the closing of Harrah’s has and will have a tremendous impact on not just the airport, but the community and state as well.”
According to Taylor, “The impact on the gaming revenue remains to be seen, whether the other properties are able to capture that business or some of it’s lost forever.”
Overall, Harrah’s closing has worried county officials and many citizens of Tunica County over issues regarding debt. Tunica County Administrator Michael Thompson, in particular, has been vocal about his concern over casinos’ affect on the county. However, Franklin disagrees with the notion that the casinos have brought anything but benefits to Tunica County.
“The gaming industry provided Tunica County government over 760 million dollars in tax revenue in 20 years,” Franklin said. “If you had an industry, name any industry, that gave you 760 million dollars, how is that a bad thing? How can you blame someone who has employed more people than live in your community? The casinos have not failed Michael Thompson or Tunica County.”
Taylor claims that the county does not need to worry about the debt.
“For the size of the budget that we have had and have now, I don’t think the debt ratio is out of line,” she said. “Here lately, there have been some industrial projects, and funds are flowing through the county back to the state to the industrial projects, so it’s a pipeline for what sounds like a lot of money. The county’s not on the hook for that. If the industry picked up and left, we wouldn’t be stuck with that debt. The state would be, but not Tunica County. I think that’s a misconception for people.”
Nash feels that changes are in order.
“Gaming in Mississippi, especially Tunica, is at a critical juncture,” he said. “I hope the casinos can weather the current times, but I am afraid it will, unfortunately, continue its spiral downfall unless some real meaningful changes and incentives can be offered soon.”
Franklin also sees change as a solution.
“In my opinion, I think the sate of Mississippi and the local government should begin looking at the gaming industry here in Tunica and other places and see how we can become more competitive than our neighbors,” Franklin said. “If we don’t sit down and recognize where we are and look at things a little differently, I think you’re going to continue to see a decline. It’s something that, if we work together, we can surely stave off.”
Taylor believes that growth is still possible for Tunica.
“I’m not saying that things are rosy, but we have a lot of resources, and the grid of our people is a great resource,” she said. “If we can just hang on until things get better, then we’ll be set to grow again.”
(Taylor Lust and Anna McCollum)
ECONOMIC DOWNFALL
Poor decision making and a massive loss of gaming revenue has put the city of Tunica in a serious financial hole that can not be fixed overnight.
In an interview with Memphis’ WMC-TV News Channel 5, Tunica County Administrator Michael Thompson says that “flat broke” was an understatement when describing Tunica’s current financial situation. The recently elected administrator said the county has a debt of 30 million dollars. Thompson could not be reached for an interview.
Casinos arrived in Tunica more than two decades ago and provided economic growth and employment to one of the poorest cities in the state of Mississippi, but casino revenue is on a downward spiral, and now the county is suffering.
Tunica County District 2 Supervisor Cedric Burnett says a few things caused this decline in casino revenue.
“The market changed, and now there is competition. We used to have customers from Texas, Oklahoma, Indiana, Alabama. We had a huge area to draw from that did not have casinos in their areas, but over time those places started getting casinos and now they stay at home.”
This problem did not begin today. It has been an ongoing issue. With the market quickly changing, funds in Tunica also quickly began to deplete.
“The decline started in 2006 or 2007. It was noticed around 2008,” Burnett said.
Tunica has eight casinos, with its biggest moneymaker, Harrah’s, closing earlier this year due to a decline in revenue coupled with sky high taxes. According to the Mississippi Gaming Commission Quarterly Report, casinos in the Northern part of the state collected about 227 million dollars from
April 1 to June 30 of this year. While 8 percent of this revenue goes back to the state, 3.2 percent is shared within the community where the casino is located. From April 1 to June 30 ten years ago, the quarterly reports for the Northern Region of the state collected about 335 million dollars. That is well over a 100 million dollar decrease in revenue over the past ten years.
“Mississippi’s position within the gaming industry has changed,” said Webster Franklin, President and CEO of the Tunica Convention & Visitors Bureau. Franklin says that Tunica has taken some big hits due to the expansion of casinos across the nation.
“It absolutely has affected Tunica. We went from a 1.2 billion dollar a year market to a 600 million dollar a year market. The industry dropped in half. The Harrah’s closure was something that I don’t think many people thought would ever happen. With that, Harrah’s closed three hotels, 1350 hotel rooms, an 18 hole golf course, an RV park, a Kid’s Quest etc. The hit to the Tunica North Mississippi market has been pretty steep because of it,” Franklin said.
Cedric Burnett said that frivolous spending is to blame for the money problems.
“Basically not paying attention to the amount of money coming in and going out is to blame,” Burnett said.
The county board has also approved a new 36 million dollar budget but need to find more cuts to balance it. As a result of this decrease in finances the county plans to raise property taxes. Tunica County residents expressed concern over the issues on The Tunica Times Facebook page. Comments ranging from questions about the residences of certain county officials, overstaffing, and anger over the fact that no one on the Board of Supervisors suggested they put away money in case of financial emergencies can be viewed on the page.
The Tunica Times Editor and Aldermen Brooks Taylor said that the damage isn’t quite what it seems. Taylor lived in Tunica back in the 80’s before the casinos came and remembers the hard times the county faced. She says that the casinos have helped with growth in Tunica and that essentially the good things that they have provided outweigh the bad.
“I don’t agree at all [with Thompson]. I was here going back before we had any of the casinos. The town and the county had a tiny budget. We had no recreation that we could offer our citizens. We had a small library that the county supported and now we have a wonderful library that offers internet services to a lot of the people that still don’t have it in their homes. We have upgraded our housing stock and we weren’t able to do that [before]. When the money came to the county, they began a housing program through various entities,” Taylor said.
Taylor said that casinos changed the way of life for Tunica residents because it provided the county with the ability to offer more to them.
“We didn’t have a lot of the new houses that are coming here as a direct result of the casinos being here and people wanting jobs in that industry. We’ve got a lot more, and better, housing stocks than we have had. Casinos brought a lot of jobs here, and at one point they had more jobs than people in the county. I would never say anything bad about the casinos,” Taylor said.
Taylor said she ran for office in hopes of alleviating some of the problems in Tunica.
“The town along with the county receives a portion of the gaming tax revenue, with that declining there have been some budgetary issues, and we’ve had to look and see where we could save money. There are some other things that the county could do. We used some of the gaming revenue to build a recreation complex, but we didn’t stop there. We built three more out in the county and they’re not used nearly as much as the original one. So I think we could consolidate services there. We’re not that big of a county,” Taylor said.
Burnett says that the solution to the financial problems in Tunica is pretty lucid.
“Pay attention to how much money you collect and keep your expenses below that amount. It’s just that simple,” Burnett said.
(Markeicha Dickens )