Pa. man charged with stealing $3M from ex-employer...

Bill Kearney

Massachusetts ‘GAMING’ Future

This type of crime is going on in every casino state, and for everyone that is solved there are many more undetected. Again it proves once more that casinos ‘BREED’ law-abiding citizens into compulsive casino gambling degenerates who become criminals.

Associated Press - February 26, 2014 - Pa. man charged with stealing $3M from ex-employer...

COLLINGDALE, Pa. (AP) — A former councilman in suburban Philadelphia waived his preliminary hearing on charges he stole nearly $3 million from his former employer to feed an alleged gambling addiction.

Former Collingdale borough councilman James Bryan faces multiple theft charges, all third-degree felonies. He is next due in Delaware County Court for a formal arraignment on March 26.

Prosecutors said Bryan stole the money over the course of 11 years while he worked as a project manager for Wescott Electric in Aston and gambled away much of it on lottery tickets and at Harrah's Casino in Chester.

Investigators said Bryan cashed checks generated for fraudulent invoices and bought copper wire for the company that he'd scrap for cash.

Bryan had been a borough councilman for nearly 20 years.

http://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/news/state/pa/pa-man-charged-with-stealing-m-from-ex-employer/article_40411aa6-33e2-5dfd-b20a-76f696676989.html

 

 

 

Harrah's/Caesars increases debt, dumps stock

PhillyDeals: Harrah's payout: $92.5 million
Joseph N. DiStefano

There's plenty of money down in Chester.

Sure, the schools are broke, the factories are shut, and family income is half Pennsylvania's average.

But the outside investors who control Caesars Entertainment Corp. were able to pocket $92.5 million in gambling income from their neon-lit Harrah's Chester Casino on Feb. 3, five days before they began selling shares in their company on the Nasdaq stock market.

They needed the commonwealth's blessing to take home those millions.

After two hearings, the state Gaming Control Board approved a Caesars subsidiary's proposal to borrow about $335 million: $234.5 million to refinance what the company still owes from building the gambling hall, at today's lower rates; the $92.5 million for the owners, and $8 million in fees and expenses.

Caesars' controlling owners are Apollo Global Management L.P., the buyout firm cofounded by Joshua Harris, who heads the new Philadelphia 76ers owners' group, and TPG Capital Group L.P. (Texas Pacific Group), the buyout firm that owns Cardone Industries Inc., Philadelphia's largest remaining industrial employer, which has been moving operations to cheap-labor South Texas.

The gaming board's Office of Enforcement Counsel, which is supposed to make sure casino owners aren't stripping their own assets, at first challenged the payout.

"Since [Harrah's] Chester was increasing its debt by approximately $100 million and also upstreaming a large portion of that increased debt" to the casino's owners, "the Office of Enforcement Counsel took the position that [the casino] had to prove its continued financial stability by submitting evidence to the full board," Frank DiGiacomo, one of a team of Duane Morris L.L.P. lawyers who argued Harrah's case, told me.

At two hearings, the casino convinced the board that it could refinance at cheaper rates, that Caesars would keep investing in the casino so it stayed profitable, and that the investors were being paid in lieu of management fees Harrah's hadn't collected up until now, Doug Sherman, the board's chief counsel, told me.

The vote was unanimous, except for the fact that chairman William Ryan recused himself. A former district attorney for Delaware County, where Chester is located, Ryan was appointed by Gov. Corbett after the hearings started.

How much is $92.5 million, in Chester terms? More than five times the $18 million the Chester Upland School District raised from local taxpayers last year; not quite as much as the $87 million kicked in by the state (mostly) and federal governments, which are trying to cut back.

Chester Upland collected $2.75 million in casino revenue-sharing money through the state under Pennsylvania law, not nearly enough to close its deficit. The district faces more cuts and another state takeover.

It's too bad for schools in Chester, and other aged Pennsylvania cities choked with tax-exempt government, nonprofit, and abandoned real estate, that the laws here leave them to depend on local property taxes and the doubtful kindness of strangers. And that they don't own any casinos of their own.


Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/business/139603773.html#ixzz1mprHYQrl

West Virginia: Gambling Funds Not Sure Thing

Gambling Funds Not Sure Thing

Every year we West Virginians in effect throw the dice in regard to gambling revenue that pumps hundreds of millions of dollars into the state budget. Thus far, our luck has held. Legalized gambling in its various forms has been a reasonably reliable jackpot for the state.

But that is changing. As we predicted years ago, other states have legalized gambling. Pennsylvania has full-fledged casinos. Ohio will have them soon. That has hurt two of our state's four casinos, in Wheeling and Chester.

During the weekend it was reported the primary stockholder of MTR Gaming, which owns the Chester casino and racetrack, is concerned about the company's future. Options "up to and including potential sale of the company" may be discussed. That revelation came on the heels of news that both MTR's chief executive officer and its chief financial officer resigned from the firm.

Financial challenges facing MTR are no secret. Top executives do not resign from companies where they believe the future is bright. Big stockholders do not seek discussions such as those reported unless they are worried.

While any talk of catastrophic events at the Chester casino and track is premature, it is clear MTR is experiencing difficulty. That may have a dramatic effect on gambling revenue for the state of West Virginia.

Yet, to our knowledge, state officials have not begun discussing a future without assured revenue from gambling.

That is no more realistic than an individual walking into a casino with the belief that he's bound to get lucky on a given night.

Once again - as we have urged several times in the past: State officials need to develop a contingency plan to deal with massive loss of gambling revenue. We can't just keep rolling the dice and assuming they will never come up "snake eyes."