History
When first approved, these casinos were required to actually be located on ships that could sail away from the dock. In some areas, gambling was only allowed when the ship was sailing. Over time, these regulations allowed gambling when the ship was docked.
In some states, such as Indiana, the boats are no longer required to leave dock or even have a captain and crew on board while the casino is open.
Further changes allowed these casinos to be located in a moat or an area with water adjacent to a navigable waterway, leading them to be referred to as "boats in moats." Over time, these casinos were allowed to be built on stilts but still had to be over water.
Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 several states are now allowing these casinos to be built on land within certain limits from a navigable waterway. Most of Mississippi's Gulf Coast riverboat casinos were destroyed or suffered severe damage from the storm, although most have been rebuilt.
Read more about this topic: Riverboat Casino
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)