Online gambling

Jacobs Entertainment Inc., the casino and racetrack gaming venture led by Jeffrey Jacobs, hopes to roll the dice on a casino and resort in Diamondhead, Miss., which is near New Orleans.

 

Multiple Mississippi and Louisiana media sites report today that Jacobs Entertainment, which is based in Golden, Colo., has applied to the Mississippi Gaming Commission for a license to operate a dockside casino in Diamondhead.

 

The same media sites also report that Jacobs Entertainment has applied to Hancock County for a rezoning in Diamondhead to allow construction of a 100,000-square-foot building that includes 40,000 square feet of gaming space, a 250-room hotel, three restaurants and retail, meeting and entertainment space.

 

None of the reports put a dollar value on the proposed project. However, a Jacobs Entertainment filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission states that in August the company paid $2.8 million to buy an undisclosed amount of land “in the Gulf Coast of Mississippi.”

 

Stephen Roark, president and spokesman for Jacobs Entertainment, did not return a message by 1:10 p.m. today.
Diamondhead is a resort community on Mississippi’s west coast that is 58 miles from New Orleans. Hancock County is home to two casinos.

 

Mr. Jacobs, the developer of the Nautica entertainment complex in Cleveland’s Flats and two loft apartments in the city’s Warehouse District, is chairman and CEO of Jacobs Entertainment. He owns half of Jacobs Entertainment. His father, Westlake-based real estate developer Richard E. Jacobs, owns the rest, according to the Hoover’s online business data service. Jacobs Investments Inc. in January 2007 took Jacobs Entertainment private, but it continues to file reports with the SEC.

 

Jacobs Entertainment operates 20 truck stop video gaming locations in Louisiana as well as a total of five casinos in Colorado and Nevada, and the Colonial Downs horse racetrack in New Kent, Va.