Floating Casino Follows Industry's Upscale Trend
As the casino riverboat industry celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, there's little resemblance between the first reproduction 1890s paddlewheelers that a decade ago plied the upper Mississippi River in Iowa and today's luxurious floating casino resort complexes with their plethora of amenities. Pinnacle Entertainment's $200 million Belterra Casino Resort in Belterra, Ind., which opened last Oct. 27, epitomizes this trend. The Belterra coincidentally and unintentionally also pays tribute to the industry's hallmark 10th anniversary - which is traditionally celebrated with a gift of aluminum or tin - through use of an innovative technique.
Making Virtual Reality of the Horseshoe Bossier City Casino Riverboat
When commercial designer Bauer Interiors hired the architectural firm of Landry and Lewis in Hattiesburg, Miss. to provide interior drawings of Horseshoe Casino's new riverboat, King of the Red, in Bossier City, La., they knew the draftsman would use computer-aided-design (CAD) graphics. Therefore, the company expected more than the usual hand-drawn renderings for the 275-ft.-long riverboat Horseshoe intended to replace its smaller Queen of the Red. What they didn't count on getting were computer renderings so faithful to reality that when they are placed next to actual photographs of the finished interior, it's difficult to tell the difference.