If you were to tell folks you had just spent an evening gambling, carrying your cup of quarters from Bally's to Circus Circus to Harrah's to the Lady Luck, chances are they would assume you were in Las Vegas. For those of us in Little Egypt, there is now an alternative scenario, a mere three hours' drive down Interstate 55, to Tunica County, Mississippi. Specifically, Tunica is 15 minutes south of Memphis, just over the state line, where the area also boasts at least eight other major casino/hotels with more on the way. With Stan Allen having noted last month that Brett Daniels has signed a 13-year contract with Tunica's Goldstrike Hotel & Casino, I thought it might be worth a look. Although Las Vegas regulars will find similarities between Nevada resorts and this Mississippi upstart -- some of the casino names are the same, after all -- they will also find significant differences. The crowds are smaller. My family and I arrived on a Friday evening and were surprised to see so many unpopulated slot machines. Although Tunica has Memphis to draw on for drop-in gamblers, it hardly has anything to compare with Las Vegas's weekend influx from California. The casinos are smaller, at least for now. When we first took our son to Circus Circus in Las Vegas, nearly 20 years ago, he was four and entranced by the multi-story display of circus acts, including, incredibly, a guy who got into a fist fight with a kangaroo. (It would be difficult to find such an act in Las Vegas today, I realize.) The Tunica Circus Circus sports a circus decor, but is primarily just a building that houses slot machines and a buffet. The overall architectural scheme in Tunica seems to be to get your casino and buffet in place first and to build hotel rooms and other amenities later. The staff is friendlier. The hairstyles and accents are local, and virtually everyone is new at his job. The blackjack dealers don't have the hard, slick look that some of the Las Vegas dealers have acquired from decades of working in the pits, and the older gentlemen greeting you at the door are closer to the fellows who greet you at Wal-mart than to the wiseguy doormen you sometimes encounter in Sin City. (Perhaps the staff is friendlier because the employees are so happy to be working. One unsubstantiated story, from a runner friend who frequents Memphis, is that pre-casino Tunica County held the second lowest per capita income in the U.S., beaten out only by a county in Hawaii that harbors a leper colony.) The slots are looser, and such advantageous play as single deck blackjack is readily available. This is a highly subjective assertion, based on the advertised payback rates and on a couple of hours of playing. My theory is that the area is still trying hard to build a base of happy gamblers, and this is a smart time to be playing there. The casinos are too far apart. This was the strangest thing we encountered. Tunica County itself is flat farm land; you can see virtually forever in any direction. But instead of finding the hotels lining up along a strip, a la Las Vegas, or huddling together as on Fremont Street, there were single casinos miles from the others, and small island clusters of three or so casinos together. It could take up to 10 minutes to drive to the next oasis of neon to resume play. I phoned one of the hotels and asked about this. Part of the answer is that it had to do with which farmers were willing to part with their land when the offers were made. But the more interesting part had to do with something else entirely -- water. If you've done any serious gambling outside Nevada or Atlantic City, chances are you did it on a river boat. Using logic that completely flabbergasts me, state legislators are willing to condone gambling only if it transpires on water. (Does water negate sin? Could you have sex with your neighbor's wife and then say to your own, "That's OK, honey, we did it in her pool."?) The Mississippi legislators are no different, and so each of the dozen major casinos in the area claims to be floating. In other words, the farmers got around the problem by simply flooding their bean fields. Circus Circus had a more interesting solution: it is surrounded by a moat. Again, when I phoned and asked about this water situation, I was told in all seriousness that the casino at which I had played the night before, by parking my car in the lot and walking into the building, was floating. This created the situation in some cases that the casino and the hotel were quite separate buildings. Only in America. (I realize this is an April Fool's issue, but I can't make this stuff up.) Entertainment is on a smaller scale, with no big marquees yet. Most of the entertainers I've heard of playing Tunica have been either country western singers or rock bands of a bygone era. Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings had played there recently. April entertainment is scheduled to include country stars Ty Herndon, Lacy J. Dalton, and the Oak Ridge Boys, along with pop artists The Grass Roots, Gary Puckett, and Bowser's Rock and Roll All-stars. The Sheraton advertised The Comedy Zone, but no huge names in April, and I could find no magic acts -- yet. (Nor could I find any fighting kangaroos.)

This Bally's has a country look. Most of the larger casino/hotels are themed. Several, as might be expected, feature a country western motif. Bally's and Sam's Town were the most notable large establishments to do so. Fitzgeralds passes itself off as an Irish castle, with Molly's Coffee Shoppe and Limericks Steakhouse. Harrah's Tunica Mardi Gras (one of two Harrah's in the region) housed a terrific New Orleans style restaurant called the Bourbon Street Bistro, at which I dined on crawfish scampi. My family's favorite was the Hollywood Casino, whose decor included numerous movie artifacts such as the Batmobile, the Batplane, the cars from The Great Race, and items from the Indiana Jones movies. The largest and newest resort in the region is the Grand Casino Tunica, which is building a Grand Convention Center and a Hale Irwin Championship Golf Course. Sam's Town and Hollywood casinos. But to magic. When Brett Daniels opens in December, he may not only be the first magician to permanently headline at a Tunica resort, but the first entertainer to do so period. At the moment there are no names up in lights. (Branson still seems to be the primary focus for "name" entertainers at backwater vacation destinations.) Whether Brett will become the Lance Burton or Siegfried and Roy of Tunica, opening doors for others, remains to be seen. We hope he succeeds. Tunica is definitely in a major growth phase and will probably continue to do so as long as other states don't (1) figure out they can flood their farm land too or (2) ask themselves what the heck water has to do with slot machines anyway. I've spoken with gamblers who prefer Tunica to Las Vegas, for the smaller crowds, friendlier staffs, and appearance of looser play. My own heart still lies with Las Vegas and its surfeit of entertainment options, but there is something enticing about the simplicity of hopping in your car and being there in a few short hours, especially if magic ever really takes root.