Mississippi casinos have assured state officials they plan torebuild on the devastated coast, but when they can reopen and whereare questions that remain to be answered.

House Gaming Committee Chairman Bobby Moak, D-Bogue Chitto, saidseveral casinos hotels, which are located on land, sustained damagebut could reopen in as little as two months. The Imperial Palacehotel already is being used to house 1,100 to 1,300 relief workers.Others, however, may have to be “gutted.”

“But there’s quite a difference between the casino floors andthe hotels,” Moak said. “Every one of the actual gaming casinos wasvirtually destroyed.”

The only exception, he said, was the Beau Rivage, where onlythree floors sustained severe damage.

“They can probably be up and at it in about three months,” Moaksaid.

The “pilings bill,” enacted this year, allows casinos to bebuilt on steel or concrete pilings to provide more stability instorms. It’s not clear with a storm the size of Katrina whetherpilings would have made a difference, Moak said, because thecasinos never had time to make the changes.

“They just didn’t have the opportunity to take advantage ofthat,” Moak said.

Casino executives have told state officials they will rebuild,but some are wanting Mississippi to change its laws to allow thegaming floors to also be built on land rather than over water.

It is a debate that has surfaced many times since the statelegalized dockside casinos in 1990. The first casinos opened in1992.

Hurricane Katrina, however, may provide the impetus to changethe law, Moak said.

“Here is the boiled down issue: What is the definition ofinland?” Moak said.

There is some difference of opinion among casino executives onthat definition as well, he said. While some only want the gamingfloors to “crawl onto the beach,” others hope to open entirecounties where gambling is legalized to casinos.

“The position I have, and I believe the industry has, is tocrawl out of the water but not to open the interior of the county,”Moak said. “There is no great hew and cry among the industry toopen up inland.”

The industry supports the position for two main reasons, Moaksaid. Politically it would be difficult, if not impossible, to openthe county interiors and, secondly, the executives who grew theMississippi market do not want to do something that might enticesome of the “big players” in Las Vegas who have yet to move intothe state, Moak said.

“Call it loyalty or whatever you want, but those who are herenow expressed the desire to come and they have invested their timeand money into growing that market. We’re going to listen to themfirst,” he said.

Gov. Haley Barbour is expected to call a special legislativesession later this month and a change in the gaming laws could beon the agenda, Moak said.

The economic effect of the casinos’ being closed for repairs orrebuilding is substantial, Moak said. The gaming industry generated$500,000 a day in tax revenue before the hurricane and $1.4 billiona year in gross gaming revenue.

Much of that revenue comes from people visiting from otherstates, Moak said. He said 77 percent of casino visitors are fromout of state.

The cost to the state is even higher than those figures reflect,Moak said.

“That does not take into account the indirect benefits likecasual sales tax, property tax and the future losses in incometax,” he said.

About 14,000 people work in the dozen casinos on the coast.

“That’s approximately $450 million a year in salaries,” Moaksaid.

The chairman said he was confident the casinos would reopen bythe end of the year but, like the entire coast, he doubted theywould be the same as they were before Katrina swept her watery handacross the beaches.