By Patrick Peterson, The Sun Herald, Biloxi, Miss.
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Jun. 29--CLERMONT HARBOR, Miss.--A Las Vegas company has purchased a $2
million casino riverboat, which it plans to operate at the site of the
failed Jubilation Casino.

Phoenix Leisure Inc. wants to create a niche market for small casinos on
the Coast, and expects to invest $20 million to $30 million in the Hancock
County operation, said Deborah Hawkins, chief financial officer.

A hotel with at least 200 rooms also is planned.

"We've been down there and looked at the market and it's growing," said
Hawkins. "This is a chance to have a small, friendly, easy place to go.
Nobody else is doing that."

The theme of the casino has not been announced.

"We've got to go through licensing and get our permits," said Hawkins.

Last year Phoenix Leisure leased the 30-acre former site of Jubilation
Casino, which went out of business in July 1996. The site is at the end of
Beach Boulevard, nearly 10 miles from U.S. 90. Hancock County's only casino
is Casino Magic in Bay St. Louis.

Early this month, the company bought the 245-foot Northern Belle for what
Phoenix Leisure president Eric Nelson called a bargain price from Park
Place Entertainment Corp., the gaming operations spinoff of Hilton Hotels
Corp. that owns Grand Casinos.

The casino riverboat has 23,000 square feet of gaming space, 828 slots
machines and 38 table games. It was built in 1994 in Lockport, La., and is
now in Ontario.

The riverboat is scheduled to leave Canada at the end of July for the
6,000-mile, 30-45-day trip to the Coast.

Phoenix Leisure owned the Jockey Club in Las Vegas, which it sold about a
year ago. The company has no operating casinos.