Security personnel and about a dozen customers roamed what was apparently the only open floor of the 36,000-square-foot Horizon Casino on Tuesday after reports that dealers at Vicksburg’s only downtown casino and hotel were heading to other casinos to find work.

No information on the casino’s moves was released by Horizon’s marketing department to the press and, instead, inquiries were directed to Vicksburg Mayor Paul Winfield’s office, where the mayor said information he’d gotten was scant.

“It’s not surprising,” Winfield said, who mentioned meetings with Tropicana Entertainment, the casino’s parent company, earlier this year as a possible reason for the Las Vegas-based hotel and hospitality company’s decision to notify City Hall before the public. Winfield’s chief of staff, Kenya Burks, said the layoffs were confirmed by the company, but only as “in excess of 20 but less than 100.”

Winfield, elected in June, said his contact with the company had been about a real estate transaction.

In 1992, before the property opened as Harrah’s in November 1993, then city officials sold a portion of the public area of City Front to the development. The company is paying for the real estate in installments and, Winfield said, executives asked the city to forgo payments for 18 months on the property that Horizon, in turn, leases back to the city for $1 per year.

Winfield said he denied the request based on past city inducements to the casino. Tropicana was a subsidiary of Columbia-Sussex until May, when it emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Columbia-Sussex bought the property in 2003 from Harrah’s and rebranded it.

Winfield said management asked the city for breaks even after allowing the property to decline. “They made money for years and didn’t put it back in the casino,” Winfield said.

Annual payments toward purchasing the former city property total $562,939.56, including a percentage of Horizon’s net revenue, City Attorney Lee Davis Thames said this morning. In 2007, the former holding company had protested to Warren County the value placed on its nine parcels, worth more than $20 million, but later withdrew the formal objection.

Based on appearances, Horizon has completely closed its table games — blackjack, craps, roulette and such — and slot machines remain operational. While the casino opened with operations on three levels, it appeared only the main level was open. According to a notice to the public, anyone who has Horizon gaming chips can still redeem them, but only for a limited time.

Slots-only casinos are legal in Mississippi. Slot machines use cash and pay out through paper tickets, not chips.

Horizon and Lighthouse Casino in Greenville — also owned by Tropicana — are the two smallest casinos in the state in terms of total employment. Non-hotel staff totals 147 at Horizon and 183 at Lighthouse, according to quarterly data through Sept. 30 submitted to the Mississippi Gaming Commission. When opened by Harrah’s the Vicksburg development was the first casino-hotel built in tandem in Mississippi, which opened river and coastal counties to casinos in 1990.

A deal worth about $35 million to sell Horizon to Nevada Gold & Casinos Inc. fell through in 2008 when the prospective buyers backed out. Tropicana’s restructuring plan allowed for the company to rid itself of more than $2.4 million in debt by splitting into two entities, one to control Tropicana Casino & Resort on the Las Vegas Strip and another that will control remaining properties in New Jersey, Nevada, Indiana, Louisiana and Mississippi.

In 2008, while still in bankruptcy, a business plan was announced that involved expanding gaming space and improving slot products at all its properties, though nothing specific about Horizon was mentioned. Estimates by the company at the time of 5 percent growth in the local casino market this year have likely fallen short, if using local tax revenue derived from the five casinos is any indicator. Vicksburg and Warren County collected only about $15,000 more in gaming- and population-based gaming taxes during fiscal 2008-09 than the previous year.

The developments at Horizon come 13 months after a fifth casino, RiverWalk, entered what had been a four-casino market in Vicksburg since 1994. Horizon is also the only casino north of the Washington Street rail overpass at Clark Street, which has been closed for several months.

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Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com