Casino Era
Entrepreneur John E. Connelly, founder of President Casinos, then gained control of the property, and the President Casino Broadwater Resort was opened aboard a riverboat docked at the Broadwater Resort Marina in August 1992. It was the second casino to open on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, following the Isle of Capri Casino which opened two weeks earlier. In June 1995, President Casinos replaced the riverboat with the former Mississippi Gold Shore Casino barge. The table games there were known for having lower limits than most other Biloxi casinos. Major country music stars performed there on Wednesday through Saturday nights, and the hotel had 550 rooms available across two structures. In 1997 and 1999, titles to the resort property and barge were formally transferred from Connelly to President Casinos.
By the early 2000s, the President Casino Broadwater Resort sat on 260 acres (1.1 km2). The powerboat-oriented Broadwater Resort Marina had 118 berths, and was regarded as "one of the best full-service, luxurious marinas between Mobile and New Orleans." The President Broadwater Golf Club offered a full-length 18-hole course. The casino featured over 38,000 square feet (3,500 m2) of gambling with over 900 slot machines. However, no work had been done on the old resort and its hotel, resulting in its declining in appearance to a run-down state. The hotel capacity was down to 450 rooms and suites, and functioned mainly as a place for the casino barge customers to sleep briefly; furniture was piled up in corridors, the hotel main floor entertainment rooms were empty, and weeds grew on the resort's tennis courts. Nevertheless, the resort still made reference to its pre-casino past, calling itself "one of the last great Southern resorts on the Mississippi Gulf Coast."
The casino itself found a niche market among local gamblers and was a reliable earner. President Casinos was saddled with corporate debt, however, and a planned new $2 billion resort at the site, to be called Destination Broadwater, never materialized. In April 2001, the President Broadwater Hotel, which represented the non-casino operations, filed for bankruptcy. President Casinos filed for bankruptcy in June 2002, and the Broadwater casino the following month, but operation of the President Casino Broadwater Resort continued.
Read more about this topic: President Casino Broadwater Resort
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