Silver Eagle sails quietly toward end

EAST DUBUQUE, Ill. On a recent afternoon, as the cruising days ofthe Silver Eagle casino neared an end, the phone rang in theblackjack pit.

"Sure, we're playing," a pit supervisor named Bill toldwhichever honcho was checking in. "Six. Yes, six players. At onetable. We're having a good time here, everybody's getting to knoweach other real well."

That's the way it's been for the Silver Eagle ever sincedockside riverboat casinos and racetrack slot machines in Iowastarted to drive gaming across the Mississippi toward extinction.Having six players at once is a noteworthy event. There wasn't abigger cluster anywhere in the casino.

About two weeks before the July …