South Beach Casino & Resort: a new gambling project in Mississippi

A new casino will soon appear on the Gulf Coast in Bay St. Louis. It will be called South Beach Casino & Resort and will offer entertainment for gamblers. The Mississippi Gaming Commission gave the green light for the gaming license on June 29, 2023.

Who’s behind the project

The online casino for fast payouts project has two proponents, both well-known entrepreneurs in the local community. One is Kirk D. Ladner, head of the construction firm Kirk Ladner Excavating, based in Gulfport. The other is Russell Elliott, with whom Ladner is collaborating on various cases but whose scope of work has not been disclosed.

This is not Ladner and Elliott’s first attempt to obtain a casino license in the same location and under the same name. They filed a similar application in 2004 but withdrew it in the second phase of the process when they needed to prove their financial soundness.

What the project is all about

South Beach Casino & Resort is a gambling complex that will occupy about four acres (1.6 hectares) of land at 6081 S. Beach Blvd. The project includes:

– A 40,000-square-foot (3,700-square-meter) gaming room;

– 1,100 slot machines;

– 25 table games;

– six poker tables.

The casino will be located on the Gulf Coast, but under Mississippi law, it must be no further than 800 feet (244 m) from the high water line, as determined by data from the past 19 years. This requirement was imposed after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which destroyed most of the casinos on the coast.

Project outlook

The project is not yet funded. Ladner and Elliott hope that getting a license will help them attract investors and lenders to pursue their plans.

But competition in the Mississippi gambling market is intense. There are already 12 casinos on the coast in Hancock and Harrison counties, and several more projects are under development or approval in Biloxi, Long Beach, and D’Iberville. In addition, land-based casinos have to compete with online platforms. Even though Internet gambling is banned in Mississippi, many Americans, according to www.twinspinca.com, still gamble at casinos, even with Kanda dollars or other currency.

The South Beach Casino & Resort project is an ambitious and risky undertaking that requires a lot of effort and investment from its initiators. But if all goes according to plan, it could become a successful and profitable business that benefits not only its owners but also the local community and the state of Mississippi.

Read more: Is Legal Gambling Age in Mississippi Different from the Other States?
Read more: Online Wagering Prospects in Mississippi
Read more: The State of Online Gambling in Mississippi