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Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Luck be a Lady in the South?
Where do you go round here to gamble?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Many years ago, just out of college and living in Washington, we made plans to meet up with some old friends for the weekend in Atlantic City, NJ. I knew the basics of your standard casino games, but this Georgia girl was really naive about gambling and the entire atmosphere that surrounds it - so naive that I actually asked what time the casinos opened on Sundays. (We were trying to figure out departure times, and I was willing to roll into DC a little later if we couldn’t get into the casinos until, say, 1 p.m.)
Amidst uncontrollable laughter, I was quickly told the casinos never close - even on Sundays. The Blue Laws of my youth did not exist in the East Coast’s gambling den. I now laugh at myself on that one, but to be fair, gambling dens (official ones at least) did not exist in the South when I was a child. That has all changed.
Today, you can find several spots to quench your thirst for roulette, craps and poker right here in our neck of the woods. Real high rollers will tell you that there’s no replacing Vegas, but Atlantans looking for a quick getaway need not travel to the desert to find a casino that will gladly take their money.
A plane ride to Memphis and a short drive south will lead you to Tunica, Miss.,. and its nine casinos, where you can golf, catch Vegas-style shows, and gamble at the tables or on the slots. Or head further south to Mississippi’s Gulf Coast and Biloxi, where at least eleven casinos are up and running and several more are in the works.
Closer to Atlanta is the Harrah’s casino in Cherokee, N.C., where you can cash in on video poker and slots. Along the coast of South Carolina and Georgia you can also take gambling cruises off shore. These cruise ships depart from Little River, S.C., (near North Myrtle Beach) and Brunswick, Ga.. They head a few miles out to sea, giving passengers a dinner, drinks and lots of opportunities to play poker, craps, roulette and the slots before the ship returns to the dock.
Have you gone gambling in the South? What are your favorite casinos and why? Do you know of other spots to check out for someone wishing to try their luck? Is there anything fun to do outside of the casinos in these gambling hot spots?
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