Alabama's New Casino Opens Nearby

Alabama's Newest Casino

It's also Alabama's first casino resort..

The beautiful Wind Creek Casino and its four restaurants opened last week. The hotel opens next week. The main floor with the casino and restaurants is nicely designed with a feeling of open space. The photos on the web site show some beautiful hotel rooms, too.

But the Wind Creek is the only game in town. And to say it's in the middle of nowhere makes it seem more urban than it really is. The hotel tower looms above the flat cotton fields of Atmore, Alabama. It is right off Interstate 65 and you can't miss it -- the tallest building between Mobile and Montgomery.

Driving distances from both Mobile and Pensacola are about 50 to 55 miles. From Mobile it's an easy, fast Interstate Highway drive all the way. From Pensacola much of the drive is on country roads and when the sign says 35 MPH you better slow down.

The slots look like Vegas-style machines but they are really bingo machines. Through the magic of the computer they can mock the look and feel of real video slots but payoffs are determined by a casino-wide bingo game for each pull. There are no table games or video poker. And it's a good bet that there are more people in the Alabama state legislature who want the place shut down than will vote to let them have a fully functioning Las Vegas- or Biloxi-style casino.

The food is quite good. The buffet's well-stocked and cheap. Right now, Monday through Thursday, if you buy one buffet meal you get one free. At lunch time that means for $7.95 plus tax -- about $8.60 total -- two people get all-you-can-eat meals. Lunch plus a tip for the disappearing waitress means the two of you are out of there for $10 and some change. Two dollars more if you valet park.

Will the lure of real slot machines, video poker and table games tempt people to travel the extra distance to Biloxi? Compared to the drive to Atmore, Biloxi is just an extra hour of driving from Pensacola and only about 15 minutes more than Atmore from Mobile. That's not a lot of additional drive time for a lot more variety in gaming, dining, lodging and entertainment.

Are we there yet?

Below is a list of driving distances in miles (with estimated driving times) from Pensacola, Florida to many cities in the Southeast United States. I also included a link to tourist information for each city.

Both the distances and the driving times are from DeLorme's Street Atlas USA 2006. The routes that the program suggested are based on using the fastest highways, not necessarily the most direct ones.

ALABAMA Birmingham 250 miles (4:25) • Fairhope 58 miles (1:06) • Magnolia Springs 49 miles (1:08) • Mobile 57 miles (0:57) • Montgomery 164 miles (3:06) • Troy 137 miles (3:07)

ARKANSAS Little Rock 511 miles (10:35)

FLORIDA Apalachicola (via Rts. 71 & 65) 216 miles (4:22) • Cocoa Beach 499 miles (7:58) • Destin 58 miles (1:35) • Fort Lauderdale 643 miles (10:23) • Fort Myers 582 miles (9:05) • Gainesville 332 miles (5:07) • Jacksonville 349 miles (5:23) • Key West 835 miles (15:15) • Lake City 290 miles (4:30) • Miami 668 miles (10:42) • Ocala 365 miles (5:36) • Orlando 441 miles (6:56) • Panama City Beach 131 miles (2:33) • St. Augustine 387 miles (6:07) • Tallahassee 188 miles (3:00) • Tampa 460 miles (7:05) • Venice 524 miles (8:10)

GEORGIA Atlanta 323 miles (5:32) • Blue Ridge 414 miles (7:25) • Savannah 485 miles (7:29)

LOUISIANA Lafayette 312 miles (4:55) • Lake Charles 382 miles (5:56) • New Orleans 200 miles (3:06)

MISSISSIPPI Biloxi 119 miles (1:52) • Jackson 251 miles (5:17) • Natchez 335 miles (5:44) • Summit 272 miles (4:14) •Tunica 449 miles (8:43) • Vicksburg 292 miles (5:57)

NORTH CAROLINA Asheville 555 miles (9:05)

SOUTH CAROLINA Charleston 585 miles (930) • Florence 599 miles (10:01) • Hilton Head 524 miles (8:18) • Myrtle Beach 704 miles (11:29)

TENNESSEE Chattanooga 394 miles (6:37) • Gatlinburg 544 miles (9:18) • Knoxville 503 miles (8:18) • Memphis 440 miles (8:46) • Nashville 442 miles (7:19)

TEXAS Austin 708 miles (11:12) • Dallas 697 miles (10:48) • Galveston 559 miles (8:42) • Houston 524 miles (8:06) • San Antonio 719 miles (11:04)