The Riverboat Casinos in The Isle of Capri
The 475 citizens of Marquette have a great benefit from this very near located enterprise making big money. The Capri hotel which is situated on stilts among trees, is visited by gamblers from different locations – nearer and further. Some of them travel hundreds of miles to reach this town and enjoy floating casinos. The first casino, which was created twelve years ago, was a great success and so far has gained an annual number of 600,000 customers, with only 150,000 from the first year. Another three floating casinos started in 1994, and by now there have been established fifteen licensed gambling operators. There are four additional casinos expected to open by the end of this year. These casinos have a great influence on the town of Marquette, which was not very long time ago a rather poor town. Nowadays, this town benefits from the revenue of $42 million dollars, as it gets $1.34 million from the casino in tax every year. This has caused that the town of Marquette is now dependent on the gaming industry and this, of course, arouses some fear regarding the casino’s relocation. Casino operators are trying to resign from the riverboat casinos and replace them with land-based casinos which are certainly cheaper to run. This situation makes the Marquette citizens afraid of losing their main profit making attraction.
