Diamond Lady Riverboat Casino: How It Ended Up in the Rough

A hebdomad after running our first off story on the Diamond Lady, its rocky vignette of the historical riverboat casino’s history put up at present be fleshed out, thanks to Don Sanders. He was the chief Ilex paraguariensis who helped canvas the Diamond peeress from Bettendorf, Ioway shoot down the Mississippi River River to Biloxi, Miss. under Capt. Ken Murphy inwards Aug 1992.

“How perform i feel looking for at her the like she is now?” Sanders repeated Casino.org’s question. “I’m pissed cancelled that the noblewoman was neglected and betrayed and wasn’t looked over and kept afloat. I’m pissed that that the selfish, greedy —holes who owned her allowed her to lapse and take with muddy up river water.”

The Diamond Lady helped launched Bodoni font gaming inwards IA and Mississippi, which 30 years ago, only if allowed it on water. The riverboat, christened in Bettendorf by Wheel of Fortune cohost Vanna Elwyn Brooks White on April 1, 1991, sank last twelvemonth during a Mississippi River River immobilize nigh Memphis, where it had been stored  inwards a marina since 2008. And now, the drought-receded Mississippi has open her ravaged hull.

Sanders, 81, is retired and lives with his wife nigh the Ohio River River inwards Aurora, Ind.

“I’m running out of time,” he said, “And I’m pissed because I, nor anyone else, can or will make out anything to play the Diamond noblewoman rear – just now to have her afloat, cleaned up, and chance a young jeopardize for her.”

Biloxi Blues

The riverboat’s builder, Bernie Goldstein, pulled her out of IA after only if a year because he wasn’t a lover of Iowa’s regulations and tax rates. Sanders said he recalls the sound of Capt. Ken during the seven-day trip-up downstream toward the Gulf, during which the Diamond peeress shoved a fine push forward inwards forepart of her.

“Capt. Ken was ace of the desired captains on the river,” Sanders said. “On the way of life push down the river, he received at least 10 other offers.”

Once in Biloxi, the Diamond peeress was fastened to her sister boat, the Emerald Lady, and so to the ticket flatboat and to the dock. The conglobation became the new branded Isle of Capri dockside casino.

“The II boats were nosed into the shore, with the ticket barge in the middle,” Sanders recalled.

Murphy didn’t feature the right license to delay with the boat in Biloxi. According to Sanders, his permission covered  the Mississippi and its tributaries, but not the Mississippi Sound, where the Biloxi cassino operated. So he decided to take a task curtain raising the Players Riverboat Casino at Metropolis, Ill.

Sanders didn’t hold that license, either, but he didn’t get Capt. Ken’s options. So he went to schoolhouse for the certify inward New siege of Orleans piece a smelly angle storage warehouse was prepped to suit the Isle of Capri’s offices. Upon his return, Sanders was named a maitre d' of the Emerald Lady. (Each boat had 4 captains, who took shifts, fifty-fifty when the boats were docked.)

“But Biloxi didn’t compensate much,” Sanders said. “I had a youth kinsfolk who was living inward Natchez, Miss. and i was commuting every 2 weeks. The MS was the like a strange set down to them.”

Last Boat Leaving

When Goldstein’s company, Casino America, opened the Isle of Capri-Vicksburg on the Mississippi River 200 miles northwest of Biloxi, he asked Sanders to canvass the Diamond noblewoman there. Goldstein had already planned to rehouse his Biloxi trading operations inward an $18 million, two-story flatboat that would unresolved inwards 1994.

Sanders turned the job down. Instead, he united his older friend, Capt. Ken, on the Players Riverboat Casino, which was finisher to his nursing home in Northern Kentucky.

“I’m lucky i didn’t turn to Vicksburg,” Sanders said.

After the Diamond noblewoman sailed there inward Aug 1993, she was docked with the same ticket barge, and both were surrounded by a moat to spring the gambling functioning of the 2d Isle of Capri.

“I heard that the dyke around the boat sprang a leak, and the police chief who went in that respect instead of me was fired,” Sanders said.

In 1994, the Diamond noblewoman was replaced at the Isle of Capri-Vicksburg by a larger dockside casino. How she ended upwardly inwards Memphis 14 years later is noneffervescent currently a whodunit to us. The Riverside Park Marina, where what’s left of the Diamond peeress rests today, did non coming back voicemails left by Casino.org.

“I was long gone by then,” Sanders said.

Stay tuned.

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