The decision to allow only water-based casinos in Mississippi is in part an artifact of history.

The state is now moving toward allowing casinos run by Indian tribes, away from their reservations.

The gambling question cuts across the alliances as neither faction is unanimous on the issue of allowing casinos here.

The company hoped to expand the facility with a casino, but efforts to allow new casinos in the Miami area made little headway.

Though they are permitted under the 1988 law, he contends that it was never meant to allow casinos so far from reservations.

In particular, they say he did not work hard enough to build legislative support for a bill to allow casinos in town.

But disputes remain over where to allow casinos.

It was in 1987 that the supreme court ruled to allow such casinos on Native land, four years before the novel is set.

It opened in 2005 under a Chilean law allowing casinos.

But whether political reality will ever allow casinos in the area remains unclear.