It's good to hear that from someone else.

The degree to which the casino industry in Biloxi is celebrated as a heroic engine of economic development and generosity depresses me. The Coast was no utopia before the casinos. And sure, yeah, the casinos employ a bunch of people and some tax money goes to local schools.

But seeing people - often poor people - gamble away their lives, seeing how much prostitution came into play, seeing how many hard drugs come in through them...I don't think the price was worth it.

But all you'll see in the local paper, and hear from most locals, is laudatory: casinos are the savior. We need more of them!