Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP Is Investigating Wynn Resorts on Behalf Of Its Shareholders
NEW YORK, March 15, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP, a national law firm concentrating on investor rights, consumer rights and enforcement of federal antitrust laws, is investigating potential wrongdoing at Wynn Resorts Ltd. ("Wynn" or the "Company") /quotes/zigman/88601/quotes/nls/wynn WYNN -0.06% . The investigation focuses on whether certain officers and directors of Wynn violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ("FCPA") by providing improper monetary benefits to government officials in Macau.
The Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") sent a letter to Wynn last month asking about a $135 million gift to the University of Macau Development Foundation. The SEC' s inquiry followed allegations in a lawsuit filed in January by a former director of Wynn and its largest shareholder, Kazuo Okada ("Okada"). Mr. Okada claims that the donation was improper because (1) the Foundation is connected to government officials who regulate gambling in Macau; (2) the Foundation sits on government owned land; and (3) the final installment of the payment is due in ten years, the precise moment when Wynn's Macau gaming license is set to expire. Should Wynn be found to be in violation of the FCPA, damages could range anywhere from fines and penalties to a loss of its status as a licensed gaming operator in the State of Nevada and elsewhere.
Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP is a national law firm which represents investors and individuals in class action and derivative litigation. The firm is focused on providing exemplary legal services in complex litigation in the areas of securities, shareholder, antitrust and consumer litigation, through all phases of litigation. The firm has an experienced trial team which has achieved significant victories on behalf of the firm's clients.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Foxborough: criticism over handling of casino issue
YOUR LETTERS: Coppola criticizes Harrington over handling of casino issue
Published: Thursday, March 15, 2012
To the editor: There is no reason for the Foxboro Board of Selectmen to hold a meeting next week at the High School except to demonstrate once again that Chairman Larry Harrington is doing the bidding of Steve Wynn and Robert Kraft in regard to a possible casino siting in the Town of Foxboro.
As chairman, Mr. Harrington sets the agenda along with input from the town manager, Mr. Kevin Paicos. So, what is so compelling to prompt Mr. Harrington to call for a selectmen's meeting next Tuesday? Two letters of opposing views on the casino siting process, the second of which had not even been seen by the public at the time Mr. Harrington declared that they must be discussed in an official public forum. There have been a lot of letters in the newspaper in recent months, what makes these two letters so important?
The letter from the "CasiNO" group was written to Gambling Commission Chairman Stephen Crosby to note the 100th day of protest of a possible casino siting in Foxboro. The other letter urged the town to start negotiations with Mr. Wynn and, just by chance (???), the author of the letter happened to be in the audience and was asked by Mr. Harrington to speak. When it was noted that this issue was not on the agenda, the invitation to speak was withdrawn.
It is not the "CasiNO" letter that is of importance, it is the other one. Or should I say the "use" of the other letter as an excuse to hold a public forum to push the selectmen to enter into negotiations for a project that has not even been presented. In December, the selectmen voted 3-2 to send letters to Gov. Patrick, Chairman Crosby, Mr. Kraft and Mr. Wynn announcing that the Town of Foxboro was not interested in being a Host Community for a casino and, therefore, was not interested in entering negotiations with the developer. It was a notice that the peoples' elected leaders of the town do not want a casino in Foxboro ... a casino that is not allowed on Route 1 by the town's zoning by-laws ...to give an answer to Mr. Kraft's statement that if the town does not want the casino, he would not pursue it. The meeting next week is an attempt by Mr. Harrington and the casino proponents to negate the December vote by the selectmen by putting pressure on the selectmen who voted in the majority to begin negotiations, in essence, begin the process of creating a Host Community Agreement.
Why does this matter? It matters because Mr. Wynn has a timetable to meet and he has a "to do" list of things that he must check off as completed. There are requirements with which he must comply before he can apply for a gambling license, one of the requirements being a Host Community Agreement. The board of selectmen is the entity which is responsible for such negotiations and three of the five selectmen have voted not to establish a Host Community Agreement. Beginning negotiations now with the Wynn Group would not benefit the town of Foxboro, but it would put the Wynn Group ahead on its timetable. There is no need for the town of Foxboro to begin negotiations on a project that has been orally and by DVD presented in concept only. How can the town negotiate from a position of strength when the Wynn Group right now "holds all the cards" and is keeping them very close to the vest?
In the last few weeks, Foxboro has seen an onslaught of slick and seductive PR from the Wynn Group to curry favor with the citizens. In addition to the DVD presentation, which actually gave no information but plenty of architectural renderings and promises of enhancements and inducements, there have been an open house and two invitation-only events where attendees were urged to work on the majority of the selectmen to change their minds and their votes on the casino issue. Pressure is being brought to bear and one has to wonder ... if this project is so good for the town of Foxboro, why can't it stand on its own merit? Why must the town be CONVINCED that this is good for the town? Why must Mr. Harrington be so manipulative and abusive in his role as chairman of the Foxboro Board of Selectmen to foster Mr. Wynn's project?
In the last few weeks, Mr. Kraft and Mr. Wynn have literally wined and dined us in an attempt to get their own way and push forward a project that would alter the town of Foxboro and the surrounding communities forever. We have been told by the Wynn Group that this is going to happen, that the state can trump local zoning by-laws, that this project is inevitable so the town might as well give in.
Well, that is not true because it is in the bill that, among other things, the developer must comply with all local by-laws and regulations, the people have a say in a referendum vote, and a Host Community Agreement must be formalized. These are some of the protections put in the bill so that a casino could not be sited in a community that does not want it. And, in addition, Foxboro was pro-active in 2004 in putting a zoning by-law in place that does not allow a casino on Route 1.
The people of Foxboro will decide the future of the town, not Mr. Wynn and Mr. Kraft. They are trying to steamroll the town because they think that we are all rubes ... let's not prove it to them by giving in to everything that they want and following their game plan.
Virginia M. Coppola
Published: Thursday, March 15, 2012
To the editor: There is no reason for the Foxboro Board of Selectmen to hold a meeting next week at the High School except to demonstrate once again that Chairman Larry Harrington is doing the bidding of Steve Wynn and Robert Kraft in regard to a possible casino siting in the Town of Foxboro.
As chairman, Mr. Harrington sets the agenda along with input from the town manager, Mr. Kevin Paicos. So, what is so compelling to prompt Mr. Harrington to call for a selectmen's meeting next Tuesday? Two letters of opposing views on the casino siting process, the second of which had not even been seen by the public at the time Mr. Harrington declared that they must be discussed in an official public forum. There have been a lot of letters in the newspaper in recent months, what makes these two letters so important?
The letter from the "CasiNO" group was written to Gambling Commission Chairman Stephen Crosby to note the 100th day of protest of a possible casino siting in Foxboro. The other letter urged the town to start negotiations with Mr. Wynn and, just by chance (???), the author of the letter happened to be in the audience and was asked by Mr. Harrington to speak. When it was noted that this issue was not on the agenda, the invitation to speak was withdrawn.
It is not the "CasiNO" letter that is of importance, it is the other one. Or should I say the "use" of the other letter as an excuse to hold a public forum to push the selectmen to enter into negotiations for a project that has not even been presented. In December, the selectmen voted 3-2 to send letters to Gov. Patrick, Chairman Crosby, Mr. Kraft and Mr. Wynn announcing that the Town of Foxboro was not interested in being a Host Community for a casino and, therefore, was not interested in entering negotiations with the developer. It was a notice that the peoples' elected leaders of the town do not want a casino in Foxboro ... a casino that is not allowed on Route 1 by the town's zoning by-laws ...to give an answer to Mr. Kraft's statement that if the town does not want the casino, he would not pursue it. The meeting next week is an attempt by Mr. Harrington and the casino proponents to negate the December vote by the selectmen by putting pressure on the selectmen who voted in the majority to begin negotiations, in essence, begin the process of creating a Host Community Agreement.
Why does this matter? It matters because Mr. Wynn has a timetable to meet and he has a "to do" list of things that he must check off as completed. There are requirements with which he must comply before he can apply for a gambling license, one of the requirements being a Host Community Agreement. The board of selectmen is the entity which is responsible for such negotiations and three of the five selectmen have voted not to establish a Host Community Agreement. Beginning negotiations now with the Wynn Group would not benefit the town of Foxboro, but it would put the Wynn Group ahead on its timetable. There is no need for the town of Foxboro to begin negotiations on a project that has been orally and by DVD presented in concept only. How can the town negotiate from a position of strength when the Wynn Group right now "holds all the cards" and is keeping them very close to the vest?
In the last few weeks, Foxboro has seen an onslaught of slick and seductive PR from the Wynn Group to curry favor with the citizens. In addition to the DVD presentation, which actually gave no information but plenty of architectural renderings and promises of enhancements and inducements, there have been an open house and two invitation-only events where attendees were urged to work on the majority of the selectmen to change their minds and their votes on the casino issue. Pressure is being brought to bear and one has to wonder ... if this project is so good for the town of Foxboro, why can't it stand on its own merit? Why must the town be CONVINCED that this is good for the town? Why must Mr. Harrington be so manipulative and abusive in his role as chairman of the Foxboro Board of Selectmen to foster Mr. Wynn's project?
In the last few weeks, Mr. Kraft and Mr. Wynn have literally wined and dined us in an attempt to get their own way and push forward a project that would alter the town of Foxboro and the surrounding communities forever. We have been told by the Wynn Group that this is going to happen, that the state can trump local zoning by-laws, that this project is inevitable so the town might as well give in.
Well, that is not true because it is in the bill that, among other things, the developer must comply with all local by-laws and regulations, the people have a say in a referendum vote, and a Host Community Agreement must be formalized. These are some of the protections put in the bill so that a casino could not be sited in a community that does not want it. And, in addition, Foxboro was pro-active in 2004 in putting a zoning by-law in place that does not allow a casino on Route 1.
The people of Foxboro will decide the future of the town, not Mr. Wynn and Mr. Kraft. They are trying to steamroll the town because they think that we are all rubes ... let's not prove it to them by giving in to everything that they want and following their game plan.
Virginia M. Coppola
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Mafia wins big in gambling boom
Mafia wins big in Italy gambling boom
Government and casinos are not the only ones doubling down on Italy's billion-dollar industry.
Italy now has the biggest gambling sector in Europe, an industry worth billions each year that has proved to be profitable for both the government and casino owners.
According to a new report, organized criminal groups, known as mafia, are the biggest winners in the gambling jackpot.
Al Jazeera’s Claudio Lavanga reports from Italy.
Alabama Judge Delays Sentencing
Judges delay sentencing of 4 who pleaded guilty in gambling corruption case
The Associated Press
MONTGOMERY — Judges have delayed the sentencing dates for the four people who pleaded guilty in Alabama's gambling corruption investigation and agreed to help prosecutors.
Casino developer Ronnie Gilley, his lobbyists, Jarrod Massey and Jennifer Pouncy, and former state Rep. Terry Spicer were scheduled for sentencing in April and May. But federal prosecutors said their cooperation was needed beyond those dates and they sought a delay.
U.S. District Judge Myon Thompson issued an order Friday setting the sentencing of Gilley, Massey and Spicer for July 16. U.S. District Judge Keith Watkins scheduled Pouncy's sentencing for Aug. 29.
A federal court jury in Montgomery acquitted six defendants in the case March 7, including casino owner Milton McGregor and three present and former state senators. There are currently no defendants awaiting trial.
The Associated Press
MONTGOMERY — Judges have delayed the sentencing dates for the four people who pleaded guilty in Alabama's gambling corruption investigation and agreed to help prosecutors.
Casino developer Ronnie Gilley, his lobbyists, Jarrod Massey and Jennifer Pouncy, and former state Rep. Terry Spicer were scheduled for sentencing in April and May. But federal prosecutors said their cooperation was needed beyond those dates and they sought a delay.
U.S. District Judge Myon Thompson issued an order Friday setting the sentencing of Gilley, Massey and Spicer for July 16. U.S. District Judge Keith Watkins scheduled Pouncy's sentencing for Aug. 29.
A federal court jury in Montgomery acquitted six defendants in the case March 7, including casino owner Milton McGregor and three present and former state senators. There are currently no defendants awaiting trial.
1 in 5 ATTEMPT SUICIDE
Be wary of youth gambling
Written by
Jennifer Faringer
Guest essayist
Youths today are bombarded with media images that depict gambling as exciting and glamorous. They are exposed to messages about the benefits of gambling and the belief that they can make a lot of money in a short time.
As parents, it’s important to give a balanced message about the realities of gambling, the potential risks and the consequences.
In New York state, approximately 140,000 adolescents have experienced problems due to their gambling. An additional 10 percent are at risk for problem gambling.
Unlike other problem behaviors, gambling is the “silent addiction” with no physical signs to detect whether your child either has or is at risk for developing a gambling problem. One in five compulsive gamblers have attempted suicide.
We know teens are at greater risk than the general population for developing a gambling problem due to their vulnerability to a variety of social issues and stressors.
Consider the following warning signs and see whether you recognize any of these behaviors in your teen:
Do they experience mood swings based on winnings and losses?
Do they neglect other responsibilities in order to concentrate on gambling?
Do they show impatience with loved ones because they are interrupting their gambling?
Are they willing to eat less or go without food so that they can gamble?
Do they gamble with money intended for necessary expenses?
Do they fantasize about big winnings and believe that they will win back all of their losses?
If the answer is “yes” to four or more of the above risks, problem gambling may be affecting your teen and your family. Other important risk factors that affect our youths include favorable attitudes toward gambling by parents and other significant adults, having friends that gamble, having a family history of gambling, starting to gambling at an early age.
The increasing availability of gambling venues as well as community attitudes that both minimize the risks of gambling and are favorable to gambling negatively affect our youth.
Written by
Jennifer Faringer
Guest essayist
Youths today are bombarded with media images that depict gambling as exciting and glamorous. They are exposed to messages about the benefits of gambling and the belief that they can make a lot of money in a short time.
As parents, it’s important to give a balanced message about the realities of gambling, the potential risks and the consequences.
In New York state, approximately 140,000 adolescents have experienced problems due to their gambling. An additional 10 percent are at risk for problem gambling.
Unlike other problem behaviors, gambling is the “silent addiction” with no physical signs to detect whether your child either has or is at risk for developing a gambling problem. One in five compulsive gamblers have attempted suicide.
We know teens are at greater risk than the general population for developing a gambling problem due to their vulnerability to a variety of social issues and stressors.
Consider the following warning signs and see whether you recognize any of these behaviors in your teen:
Do they experience mood swings based on winnings and losses?
Do they neglect other responsibilities in order to concentrate on gambling?
Do they show impatience with loved ones because they are interrupting their gambling?
Are they willing to eat less or go without food so that they can gamble?
Do they gamble with money intended for necessary expenses?
Do they fantasize about big winnings and believe that they will win back all of their losses?
If the answer is “yes” to four or more of the above risks, problem gambling may be affecting your teen and your family. Other important risk factors that affect our youths include favorable attitudes toward gambling by parents and other significant adults, having friends that gamble, having a family history of gambling, starting to gambling at an early age.
The increasing availability of gambling venues as well as community attitudes that both minimize the risks of gambling and are favorable to gambling negatively affect our youth.
Police Break Up Casino Credit Card Scam
Police Break Up Casino Credit Card Scam
The suspects used fake cards to get cash advances at the casinos, police said.
By Doug Greene
A New London man and his nephew are accused of using counterfeit credit cards, with their own names and pictures on them, as part of a criminal organization that stole more than $320,000 in merchandise and gift cards.
Joseph Ellis, 44, appeared in court Friday afternoon. Court papers accuse Ellis of leading a criminal organization using counterfeit Discover cards at Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods casinos to obtain cash advances at least twice a week over three months last fall.
Ellis, and his nephew, 28-year-old Michael Hyslop, are charged with first-degree larceny, and conspiracy to commit first-degree larceny.
Three men who are already in prison will also face larceny charges, police said.
According to authorities, the men would proved casino workers with fake credit cards with magnetic strips that would not work. Clerks would key in the card numbers, and the users would then show their real IDs, matching the names and pictures on the cards.
They allegedly used the proceeds at businesses ranging from the Cumberland Farms in New London to the Kohl's in Groton. Police say Ellis bought a $1,300 diamond engagement ring at the Kohl's, using gift cards obtained with the cash advances.
Ellis has a history of nonviolent crimes, according to police. He was held on $250,000 bond.
Hyslop was released after posting $50,000 bond.
The suspects used fake cards to get cash advances at the casinos, police said.
By Doug Greene
A New London man and his nephew are accused of using counterfeit credit cards, with their own names and pictures on them, as part of a criminal organization that stole more than $320,000 in merchandise and gift cards.
Joseph Ellis, 44, appeared in court Friday afternoon. Court papers accuse Ellis of leading a criminal organization using counterfeit Discover cards at Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods casinos to obtain cash advances at least twice a week over three months last fall.
Ellis, and his nephew, 28-year-old Michael Hyslop, are charged with first-degree larceny, and conspiracy to commit first-degree larceny.
Three men who are already in prison will also face larceny charges, police said.
According to authorities, the men would proved casino workers with fake credit cards with magnetic strips that would not work. Clerks would key in the card numbers, and the users would then show their real IDs, matching the names and pictures on the cards.
They allegedly used the proceeds at businesses ranging from the Cumberland Farms in New London to the Kohl's in Groton. Police say Ellis bought a $1,300 diamond engagement ring at the Kohl's, using gift cards obtained with the cash advances.
Ellis has a history of nonviolent crimes, according to police. He was held on $250,000 bond.
Hyslop was released after posting $50,000 bond.
3 in New London charged in $326,000 credit card fraud
3 in New London charged in $326,000 credit card fraud
By GREG SMITH
The Bulletin
New London, Conn. — State, federal and local law enforcement joined Thursday to arrest three New London residents as part of lengthy criminal investigation into credit card fraud.
The investigation originated with the state police casino unit and focused on a criminal enterprise comprised of several people who fraudulently used credit cards and stole more than $326,000, state police said.
On Thursday, authorities executed four search-and-seizure warrants at four addresses in New London. Police said the search warrants led to the discovery of numerous items of evidence and recovery of stolen property.
In addition to the arrests, police said they hold warrants for three other people who are in prison for crimes associated with the investigation.
On Thursday, Joseph Ellis, 44, and Michael Hyslop, 28, each were charged with first-degree larceny conspiracy to commit first-degree larceny. Also arrested was Shauntay Ellis, 25, on the charge of second-degree failure to appear.
All three were expected to appear Friday in New London Superior Court.
Assisting the state police casino unit in the investigation was the state police Eastern District Major Crime Unit, Connecticut Financial Crimes Task Force, Statewide Narcotics Task Force, U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Postal Inspector’s Office, New London police, Groton City police, Groton town police and Waterford police.
Read more: 3 in New London charged in $326,000 credit card fraud - Norwich, CT - The Bulletin http://www.norwichbulletin.com/news/x299885380/Three-in-New-London-charged-in-326-000-credit-card-fraud#ixzz1pNeCI1o6
By GREG SMITH
The Bulletin
New London, Conn. — State, federal and local law enforcement joined Thursday to arrest three New London residents as part of lengthy criminal investigation into credit card fraud.
The investigation originated with the state police casino unit and focused on a criminal enterprise comprised of several people who fraudulently used credit cards and stole more than $326,000, state police said.
On Thursday, authorities executed four search-and-seizure warrants at four addresses in New London. Police said the search warrants led to the discovery of numerous items of evidence and recovery of stolen property.
In addition to the arrests, police said they hold warrants for three other people who are in prison for crimes associated with the investigation.
On Thursday, Joseph Ellis, 44, and Michael Hyslop, 28, each were charged with first-degree larceny conspiracy to commit first-degree larceny. Also arrested was Shauntay Ellis, 25, on the charge of second-degree failure to appear.
All three were expected to appear Friday in New London Superior Court.
Assisting the state police casino unit in the investigation was the state police Eastern District Major Crime Unit, Connecticut Financial Crimes Task Force, Statewide Narcotics Task Force, U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Postal Inspector’s Office, New London police, Groton City police, Groton town police and Waterford police.
Read more: 3 in New London charged in $326,000 credit card fraud - Norwich, CT - The Bulletin http://www.norwichbulletin.com/news/x299885380/Three-in-New-London-charged-in-326-000-credit-card-fraud#ixzz1pNeCI1o6
Harrah's Rincon Casino Shooting Suspect Caught
VALLEY CENTER: Deputies identify suspect in officer-involved shooting
By MORGAN COOK North County Times
VALLEY CENTER ---- A man who deputies identified as Joe Emmanuel Hernandez, 25, was jailed Friday on suspicion of crimes including attempted murder after an incident that led to an officer-involved shooting outside Harrah's Rincon Casino, authorities said.
San Diego County sheriff's investigators responded Thursday afternoon to a report of a stolen vehicle at the casino, 777 Harrah's Rincon Way, according to a report by Det. Daniel Deese.
Investigators were watching the vehicle when Hernandez walked up to it and got behind the wheel, Deese said. Investigators went up the vehicle and tried to detain Hernandez, who ignored their orders and tried to drive away.
As he was trying to flee, Hernandez struck one of the investigators with the vehicle, causing the other investigators to shoot at Hernandez, Deese said.
None of the shots hit Hernandez, Deese said. The deputy who was struck by the vehicle suffered minor injuries.
After striking the deputy, Hernandez tried to drive over a landscaped median to escape, an official said Thursday. The vehicle got stuck on a hedge, so he fled on foot.
Deputies captured him minutes later in a nearby neighborhood, the official said.
Hernandez was jailed Friday at the Vista Detention Center on suspicion of attempted murder, vehicle theft, resisting arrest and driving with a suspended driver's license, according to jail records.
Read more: http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/valley-center/valley-center-deputies-identify-suspect-in-officer-involved-shooting/article_033e1de2-16e5-50d3-936a-6f1082826769.html#ixzz1pNd9neig
By MORGAN COOK North County Times
VALLEY CENTER ---- A man who deputies identified as Joe Emmanuel Hernandez, 25, was jailed Friday on suspicion of crimes including attempted murder after an incident that led to an officer-involved shooting outside Harrah's Rincon Casino, authorities said.
San Diego County sheriff's investigators responded Thursday afternoon to a report of a stolen vehicle at the casino, 777 Harrah's Rincon Way, according to a report by Det. Daniel Deese.
Investigators were watching the vehicle when Hernandez walked up to it and got behind the wheel, Deese said. Investigators went up the vehicle and tried to detain Hernandez, who ignored their orders and tried to drive away.
As he was trying to flee, Hernandez struck one of the investigators with the vehicle, causing the other investigators to shoot at Hernandez, Deese said.
None of the shots hit Hernandez, Deese said. The deputy who was struck by the vehicle suffered minor injuries.
After striking the deputy, Hernandez tried to drive over a landscaped median to escape, an official said Thursday. The vehicle got stuck on a hedge, so he fled on foot.
Deputies captured him minutes later in a nearby neighborhood, the official said.
Hernandez was jailed Friday at the Vista Detention Center on suspicion of attempted murder, vehicle theft, resisting arrest and driving with a suspended driver's license, according to jail records.
Read more: http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/valley-center/valley-center-deputies-identify-suspect-in-officer-involved-shooting/article_033e1de2-16e5-50d3-936a-6f1082826769.html#ixzz1pNd9neig
Casino Robbers Convicted Of Similar Crimes In Ind.
Casino Robbers Convicted Of Similar Crimes In Ind.
Pair Faces Up To 50 More Years In Prison
RISING SUN, Ind. — WLWT.com
Two men convicted in Ohio of robbing casino winners were found guilty of similar crimes in Indiana.
Kenyatta Erkins and Ugbe Ojile were convicted Thursday in Ohio County of conspiracy to commit robbery resulting in serious bodily harm.
The pair faces up to 50 years in prison when they are sentenced April 13.
Ojile was sentenced in October to 35 years in prison and Erkins was sentenced to 30 years.
An accomplice, Amy Hoover, pleaded guilty and testified against both men. She did not take part in the Indiana trial.
The trio was accused of following winners home from Indiana riverboat casinos and robbing them at gunpoint, taking more than $100,000 in more than two dozen robberies.
Pair Faces Up To 50 More Years In Prison
RISING SUN, Ind. — WLWT.com
Two men convicted in Ohio of robbing casino winners were found guilty of similar crimes in Indiana.
Kenyatta Erkins and Ugbe Ojile were convicted Thursday in Ohio County of conspiracy to commit robbery resulting in serious bodily harm.
The pair faces up to 50 years in prison when they are sentenced April 13.
Ojile was sentenced in October to 35 years in prison and Erkins was sentenced to 30 years.
An accomplice, Amy Hoover, pleaded guilty and testified against both men. She did not take part in the Indiana trial.
The trio was accused of following winners home from Indiana riverboat casinos and robbing them at gunpoint, taking more than $100,000 in more than two dozen robberies.
The biggest gambling addict of them all
The biggest gambling addict of them all
Governments won't give up on gaming, so the only debate is where best to place a new casino
By Mark Sutcliffe, Ottawa Citizen
Once upon a time, there would have been debate about whether Ottawa wanted a casino. Today, the discussion seems to be only about where to put it.
There are so many casinos in North America now that we've given up any moral evaluation of whether government-sponsored gambling is appropriate or harmful. We've surrendered to the idea that gaming is here to stay, whether it's a good idea or not. Other jurisdictions are doing it, so we have to as well, just to keep up.
A decade or two ago, we worried that building casinos would cause more people to have gambling problems. But now it's the government that has the biggest gambling addiction of all. The province has come to depend on the big revenues from casinos and lotteries, which have helped fuel massive spending increases. Even the City of Ottawa gets a nice share from the slot machines at Rideau Carleton Raceway. So now, naturally, both levels of government want even more gambling revenue.
Imagine if you had a friend who regularly spent more money than he earned and his solution was to use gambling as a way to help him fix his cash-flow problem. That's effectively what the provincial government is doing, and it's not the first time. The first wave of casino gambling was introduced in 1992, again when Queen's Park was coping with a big deficit.
But the strongest argument against gambling isn't that it's harmful, it's that it creates very little new wealth. Oh, of course, some people - a select few - get wealthy from gambling.
But they're just taking money from all the people who lose.
For the entire population of participants, gambling is a zero-sum game. In fact, it's even worse, since the odds are stacked so the house makes money.
The bottom line is that when the government is involved, gambling is a form of voluntary taxation. If you don't feel you've given the government enough money so far this year, buy a lottery ticket or go to a government-run casino. There's a small chance that you'll come out ahead. But the odds are much higher that at the end of your experience, the government will have more money and you'll have less.
Gambling produces revenue for the government, but it doesn't create much economic benefit. Lotteries and casinos just move money around from person to person and from person to government. Most of it is money that would have been spent on other forms of entertainment anyway. Compare that to economic activities that create value, including new jobs and wealth.
Does gambling spur tourism revenue? In some cases, yes. But we're not talking about creating a Las Vegas North. Ontario is not going to become a market leader in the casino business. We're just trying to get our small piece of the revenues. And since casinos are everywhere now, it's unlikely someone will choose to visit Ottawa just to gamble.
And any big gains in prying gaming dollars from visitors are usually short-lived. After Ontario opened a casino in Windsor, Michigan opened three in Detroit.
As a result, the population of Americans crossing the border to lose their money in Canada dropped dramatically.
Taking more money from taxpayers, whether they choose to give it to you or not, is not a particularly solid economic development strategy. Instead of figuring out how to get more consumers' dollars into the hands of government, and promoting the appeal of getting rich quick, the province should be trying to create more wealth through innovation, business growth, productivity and good old-fashioned hard work.
Here in Ottawa, there's a small argument to be made in favour of a new casino if your only goal is generating more revenue for the government. We likely would keep more cash in the province if we more effectively competed with the Casino du Lac-Leamy, which sends the voluntary taxation of many Ontario residents to Quebec City instead of Queen's Park.
That would help the province's cash flow, but it's not clear how much it would help the community, since Ottawa-Gatineau is one economic region. Once again, we're just moving money around instead of creating new wealth.
But since city councillors are already putting in pitches on behalf of their wards, if we're going to build a new casino in Ottawa, it should be right downtown.
Councillor Peter Hume is right that Scotiabank Place and Lansdowne Park are not the right locations. (Although he went a bit far when he said the former was "in the middle of nowhere." Apparently he hasn't been to Kanata lately.) The ideal location would be within a few metres of major hotels and the Ottawa Convention Centre, so that more tourists will find it convenient to gamble away their money. If the government's going to move money around by promoting gaming, it might as well get as much as it can from tourists rather than residents.
Our new motto could be: what happens in Ottawa stays in Ottawa.
Only by "what happens" we actually mean "the money you gamble."
Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/biggest+gambling+addict+them/6310552/story.html#ixzz1pNb88Qe2
Governments won't give up on gaming, so the only debate is where best to place a new casino
By Mark Sutcliffe, Ottawa Citizen
Once upon a time, there would have been debate about whether Ottawa wanted a casino. Today, the discussion seems to be only about where to put it.
There are so many casinos in North America now that we've given up any moral evaluation of whether government-sponsored gambling is appropriate or harmful. We've surrendered to the idea that gaming is here to stay, whether it's a good idea or not. Other jurisdictions are doing it, so we have to as well, just to keep up.
A decade or two ago, we worried that building casinos would cause more people to have gambling problems. But now it's the government that has the biggest gambling addiction of all. The province has come to depend on the big revenues from casinos and lotteries, which have helped fuel massive spending increases. Even the City of Ottawa gets a nice share from the slot machines at Rideau Carleton Raceway. So now, naturally, both levels of government want even more gambling revenue.
Imagine if you had a friend who regularly spent more money than he earned and his solution was to use gambling as a way to help him fix his cash-flow problem. That's effectively what the provincial government is doing, and it's not the first time. The first wave of casino gambling was introduced in 1992, again when Queen's Park was coping with a big deficit.
But the strongest argument against gambling isn't that it's harmful, it's that it creates very little new wealth. Oh, of course, some people - a select few - get wealthy from gambling.
But they're just taking money from all the people who lose.
For the entire population of participants, gambling is a zero-sum game. In fact, it's even worse, since the odds are stacked so the house makes money.
The bottom line is that when the government is involved, gambling is a form of voluntary taxation. If you don't feel you've given the government enough money so far this year, buy a lottery ticket or go to a government-run casino. There's a small chance that you'll come out ahead. But the odds are much higher that at the end of your experience, the government will have more money and you'll have less.
Gambling produces revenue for the government, but it doesn't create much economic benefit. Lotteries and casinos just move money around from person to person and from person to government. Most of it is money that would have been spent on other forms of entertainment anyway. Compare that to economic activities that create value, including new jobs and wealth.
Does gambling spur tourism revenue? In some cases, yes. But we're not talking about creating a Las Vegas North. Ontario is not going to become a market leader in the casino business. We're just trying to get our small piece of the revenues. And since casinos are everywhere now, it's unlikely someone will choose to visit Ottawa just to gamble.
And any big gains in prying gaming dollars from visitors are usually short-lived. After Ontario opened a casino in Windsor, Michigan opened three in Detroit.
As a result, the population of Americans crossing the border to lose their money in Canada dropped dramatically.
Taking more money from taxpayers, whether they choose to give it to you or not, is not a particularly solid economic development strategy. Instead of figuring out how to get more consumers' dollars into the hands of government, and promoting the appeal of getting rich quick, the province should be trying to create more wealth through innovation, business growth, productivity and good old-fashioned hard work.
Here in Ottawa, there's a small argument to be made in favour of a new casino if your only goal is generating more revenue for the government. We likely would keep more cash in the province if we more effectively competed with the Casino du Lac-Leamy, which sends the voluntary taxation of many Ontario residents to Quebec City instead of Queen's Park.
That would help the province's cash flow, but it's not clear how much it would help the community, since Ottawa-Gatineau is one economic region. Once again, we're just moving money around instead of creating new wealth.
But since city councillors are already putting in pitches on behalf of their wards, if we're going to build a new casino in Ottawa, it should be right downtown.
Councillor Peter Hume is right that Scotiabank Place and Lansdowne Park are not the right locations. (Although he went a bit far when he said the former was "in the middle of nowhere." Apparently he hasn't been to Kanata lately.) The ideal location would be within a few metres of major hotels and the Ottawa Convention Centre, so that more tourists will find it convenient to gamble away their money. If the government's going to move money around by promoting gaming, it might as well get as much as it can from tourists rather than residents.
Our new motto could be: what happens in Ottawa stays in Ottawa.
Only by "what happens" we actually mean "the money you gamble."
Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/biggest+gambling+addict+them/6310552/story.html#ixzz1pNb88Qe2
Out-of-control gambling in desperate times can ruin lives
Out-of-control gambling in desperate times can ruin lives
By Lori Griffith, Special to QMI Agency
Daily I witness the impact of gambling that has gotten out of control, and the valiant efforts of individuals and families to regain the many broken aspects of their lives.
With the expansion of gambling there always is a calculated risk to the individuals who participate.
Recently the Western Fair District in London announced the testing of the new Poker Pro system, and now the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. has reported it is taking more drastic steps to modernize gambling by making it more readily, privately and alluringly available.
In these tough economic times people are looking to solve financial problems and may begin to gamble in the hope of finding a miracle. Gambling should never be treated as a way to solve financial difficulties.
While many people gamble as a form of entertainment, for individuals who develop problems, the consequences are much more than just financial. Gambling problems cause relationship difficulties, emotional/mental health concerns, employment troubles and may lead to legal problems.
The expansion and modernization strategy by the OLG will make gambling available virtually everywhere, increasing the risks for vulnerable people.
The OLG reported it needs to begin to attract younger people to gambling in an effort to increase lost profits during the past decade. With early exposure to gambling, youth are at a far higher risk for developing gambling problems later in life. The more accessible and advanced the technology and games become the more alluring it will be for youth to access them.
Currently, the prevalence rates for youth with gambling problems are higher than for adults. It is a worrisome reality the community needs to pay attention to.
The privatization of the gambling industry is of grave concern. It is imperative to have industries like the gambling industry strictly regulated. Just as the government firmly regulates liquor sales it is also vital that they continue to monitor and control the gambling industry.
The OLG reports changes to its gambling strategy will attract revenue from outside of the province. We need to think about the people who live in Ontario, and consider the long-term effects in our local communities.
Evidence shows that the impact on the local community can be devastating with mounting social problems. This is due to its growing presence in our neighbourhoods as well as the accessibility by the clicking of a mouse.
If you are concerned about your gambling, a loved one’s gambling or if you want more information, you can contact Addiction Services of Thames Valley at 519-673-3242, ext. *234 or at intake@adstv.on.ca. This is a free and confidential counselling service.
In addition to counselling, ADSTV also offers off-site self-exclusion for individuals who would like to add themselves to a list to be banned from entering all the current 27 OLG gambling sites. Many people who have been concerned about their gambling have found this service offered by the OLG of assistance as part of a strategy to help them refrain from gambling in the casino.
Lori Griffith is co-ordinator of core programs for Addiction Services of Thames Valley in London.
By Lori Griffith, Special to QMI Agency
Daily I witness the impact of gambling that has gotten out of control, and the valiant efforts of individuals and families to regain the many broken aspects of their lives.
With the expansion of gambling there always is a calculated risk to the individuals who participate.
Recently the Western Fair District in London announced the testing of the new Poker Pro system, and now the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. has reported it is taking more drastic steps to modernize gambling by making it more readily, privately and alluringly available.
In these tough economic times people are looking to solve financial problems and may begin to gamble in the hope of finding a miracle. Gambling should never be treated as a way to solve financial difficulties.
While many people gamble as a form of entertainment, for individuals who develop problems, the consequences are much more than just financial. Gambling problems cause relationship difficulties, emotional/mental health concerns, employment troubles and may lead to legal problems.
The expansion and modernization strategy by the OLG will make gambling available virtually everywhere, increasing the risks for vulnerable people.
The OLG reported it needs to begin to attract younger people to gambling in an effort to increase lost profits during the past decade. With early exposure to gambling, youth are at a far higher risk for developing gambling problems later in life. The more accessible and advanced the technology and games become the more alluring it will be for youth to access them.
Currently, the prevalence rates for youth with gambling problems are higher than for adults. It is a worrisome reality the community needs to pay attention to.
The privatization of the gambling industry is of grave concern. It is imperative to have industries like the gambling industry strictly regulated. Just as the government firmly regulates liquor sales it is also vital that they continue to monitor and control the gambling industry.
The OLG reports changes to its gambling strategy will attract revenue from outside of the province. We need to think about the people who live in Ontario, and consider the long-term effects in our local communities.
Evidence shows that the impact on the local community can be devastating with mounting social problems. This is due to its growing presence in our neighbourhoods as well as the accessibility by the clicking of a mouse.
If you are concerned about your gambling, a loved one’s gambling or if you want more information, you can contact Addiction Services of Thames Valley at 519-673-3242, ext. *234 or at intake@adstv.on.ca. This is a free and confidential counselling service.
In addition to counselling, ADSTV also offers off-site self-exclusion for individuals who would like to add themselves to a list to be banned from entering all the current 27 OLG gambling sites. Many people who have been concerned about their gambling have found this service offered by the OLG of assistance as part of a strategy to help them refrain from gambling in the casino.
Lori Griffith is co-ordinator of core programs for Addiction Services of Thames Valley in London.
Internet Gambling Addiction Leads to Prison
Accounts clerk in £236,000 theft from Leeds PR firm
An accounts clerk stole almost a quarter of a million pounds from the public relations firm where she worked to fund her gambling addiction.
Kay Fearnley, 55, was jailed for three years and nine months yesterday after she admitted stealing a total of £236,000 from Leeds-based Brahm PR.
Leeds Crown Court heard how the offences took place over a six-year period until her deception was uncovered when she was made redundant.
Fearnley, of Lark Hill Road, Gledhow, Leeds, inputted her own bank account details on a list of payments which were to be made to clients.
After a payment was made into her account, she would then amend the list to remove her details and avoid detection.
She continued the deception until her final day working for the company after being made redundant.
Louise Pryke, prosecuting, said Brahm had no record of the deception but Fearnley was arrested after her bank statements showed unexplained payments from the firm into her account.
She said: “It was a planned, thorough and systematic deception. She found a flaw in the accounts system and she exploited it.”
Mrs Pryke said much of the money had been spent on online gambling, credit cards, loans, holidays and shopping.
After her arrest, Fearnley initially lied that the money had been for her husband for work he had done for the company.
Graham Parkin, for Fearnley, said: “She was shocked when the total sum was put to her in interview.
“She could not believe the total amount. As often happens, she took the first payment with a then addiction to gambling.
“She always believed she could win enough money to put the money back.”
Mr Parkin said the money was not used to fund a lavish lifestyle, with her family living in a former council house and owning a second hand car.
He added that Fearnley had no previous convictions and was full of remorse for what she had done.
Jailing her, judge Geoffrey Marson QC said: “Most of it has gone on gambling. Some of it went on holidays. Whatever happened to it, it was a gross breach of trust.
He added: “It is a tragedy for you and for your family. I accept that you are remorseful and that you are unlikely to reoffend and you have no convictions.
“To go to custody for the first time will be difficult to bear.”
An accounts clerk stole almost a quarter of a million pounds from the public relations firm where she worked to fund her gambling addiction.
Kay Fearnley, 55, was jailed for three years and nine months yesterday after she admitted stealing a total of £236,000 from Leeds-based Brahm PR.
Leeds Crown Court heard how the offences took place over a six-year period until her deception was uncovered when she was made redundant.
Fearnley, of Lark Hill Road, Gledhow, Leeds, inputted her own bank account details on a list of payments which were to be made to clients.
After a payment was made into her account, she would then amend the list to remove her details and avoid detection.
She continued the deception until her final day working for the company after being made redundant.
Louise Pryke, prosecuting, said Brahm had no record of the deception but Fearnley was arrested after her bank statements showed unexplained payments from the firm into her account.
She said: “It was a planned, thorough and systematic deception. She found a flaw in the accounts system and she exploited it.”
Mrs Pryke said much of the money had been spent on online gambling, credit cards, loans, holidays and shopping.
After her arrest, Fearnley initially lied that the money had been for her husband for work he had done for the company.
Graham Parkin, for Fearnley, said: “She was shocked when the total sum was put to her in interview.
“She could not believe the total amount. As often happens, she took the first payment with a then addiction to gambling.
“She always believed she could win enough money to put the money back.”
Mr Parkin said the money was not used to fund a lavish lifestyle, with her family living in a former council house and owning a second hand car.
He added that Fearnley had no previous convictions and was full of remorse for what she had done.
Jailing her, judge Geoffrey Marson QC said: “Most of it has gone on gambling. Some of it went on holidays. Whatever happened to it, it was a gross breach of trust.
He added: “It is a tragedy for you and for your family. I accept that you are remorseful and that you are unlikely to reoffend and you have no convictions.
“To go to custody for the first time will be difficult to bear.”
Friday, March 16, 2012
The Baffling GOP Rep. Daniel Webster
Posted on Blue Mass Group: http://chrismatth.bluemassgroup.com/2012/03/14/dan-websters-hypocrisy/
If only GOP Rep. Dan Webster practiced what he preached…
A weird tale that is somewhat reminiscent of Dianne Wilkerson's serial inability to comply with tax and campaign finance laws.
On April 3, 2006 the Massachusetts House of Representatives passed “An Act Providing Access to Affordable, Quality Accountable Healthcare” by a 155-2 vote. The two State Representatives who voted against this legislation will no doubt go down in history as the two biggest hypocrites in the history of the Massachusetts GOP Caucus, and it’s not because they continued to take advantage of a generous taxpayer-funded health care plan after voting against affordable healthcare for their constituents.
The first hypocrite is Jeff Perry of Sandwich. Rep. Perry spent his career decrying government waste. He even took the time in his farewell speech in 2011 to take a jab at public employees. Perry went on to take a $110,000/year job as Barnstable County Special Sheriff, a position that had been vacant for two years. But you knew that.
The second hypocrite you might not know – meet Rep. Daniel K. Webster. Much like Perry, Webster is a far-right wing Republican who aligns with Brian Camenker on social issues. He currently represents Duxbury, Halifax, Hanson, and Pembroke in the House of Representatives. I’d mention which town he resides in, but he moves around so much that I’m not exactly sure.
Like many members of the Mass GOP, Rep. Webster has spent his career campaigning on fiscal responsibility. He wants the Commonwealth to live within its means the way his constituents do. Unfortunately, instead of working to model the Commonwealth’s finances after that of his constituents, Dan Webster has been working to model his own finances after the Commonwealth’s. He’s done quite a good job at it, too.
Public records tell quite a tale of Webster’s fiscal IRresponsibility… Keep in mind that per financial disclosures filed with the state Webster takes home between $120,000 and $200,000 per year from his job at the State House and his law practice.
Webster’s first instance of public fiscal irresponsibility seems to have taken place during the period from 2005 through 2007. According to a 2009 decision by the OCPF, Webster’s campaign violated numerous aspects of campaign finance law by not reporting all of its’ expenditures, lying about the source of campaign contributions, not reporting campaign contributions, and receiving improper contributions. Webster was fined $1,000 and had to submit an increased number of campaign finance reports along with significant backup information for a period of two years. You have to give Webster credit for violating almost every aspect of campaign finance law – well done, Representative!
Tax Day 2006 came and passed without much action from Webster when he didn’t bother to pay the $6,658 he owed on his income tax return. The Internal Revenue Service filed a lien on Webster’s real estate on November 6, 2006. He waited until 2009 to pay it back – the lien was released on March 12, 2009.
June of 2007 marked the beginning of Webster’s failure to file payroll tax returns for his law firm. Between April 1, 2007 and June 30, 2008 Webster had failed to file six payroll returns for a total of $13,647 due to the federal government. The government slapped yet another lien on his real estate on October 6, 2008. Like any fiscally responsible Republican, Webster responded by doing the fiscally irresponsible thing: he didn’t pay the next payroll tax return that was due, either. He was rewarded with a third lien, this one for $57.46.
Based on the liens, one could guess cash was tight for Webster in 2008. He needed cash quick so he took out a $175,000 mortgage with Rockland Trust with his then-girlfriend in November of that year. Unfortunately it seems that Webster thought he was signing onto a “Get Rich Quick” scheme, not a mortgage. He failed to make more than a few payments on the mortgage and foreclosure proceedings began in 2010. The court docket for Rockland Trust v. Webster tells an interesting tale. The initial filing took place in August of 2010. Hearings were continued through June of 2011 when it was disclosed that Webster was in bankruptcy. In November of 2011 Webster was ordered to appear in court on February 13, 2012 at 2pm in Brockton for final judgment of the proceedings. Like any fiscally responsible Republican, Webster did the irresponsible thing: he didn’t show up at court. Webster defaulted on a $125,135 balance and the court further assessed him interest, costs, and attorney fees. The total judgment against Webster last month was $191,106.95.
2009 brought more trouble for Webster. He wrote a $40 check to renew his license, but the check bounced. As a result, his license to drive was suspended for a one month period beginning March 23, 2009. But something funny happened during that period – Webster drove to work twelve times and took home $312 in per diems for doing so. Driving on a suspended license is a criminal offense in Massachusetts with a penalty of up to $10,000 in fines and 60 days to 2-1/2 years in jail, while writing a bad check is just a civil offense.
2010 brought yet another license suspension over bounced checks, but this time Webster’s law license was suspended for mis-managing client funds. Every penny of client funds that come in and go out of an attorney’s IOLTA bank account must be properly accounted for. Webster failed to do this AND ignored requests by the Board of Bar Overseers for an explanation of the error. His license to practice law was suspended from June 4, 2010 through June 25, 2010. To apparently make up for lost legal income Webster drove himself to Beacon Hill 12 times during that three week period for another $312 in per diems.
The per diem thing REALLY bothers me. Fiscally responsible Republicans always decry wasteful spending like the per diem but they always seem to take them. Per diems make sense if you live in The Berkshires, Provincetown, Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket, but not Halifax or Hanson or Pembroke. Per diems are working out pretty well for Webster, though. He’s taken home over $10,000 worth since 2009. Based on that average Webster may well have taken home an additional $30,000 since being first elected… FOR DRIVING TO WORK!
Fortunately for us, Rep. Daniel K. Webster is a very humble man. With his history of financial ineptitude, Rep. Webster would never dare stand in the rostrum calling for fiscal responsibility.
Actually, he would. Two days after defaulting on almost $200,000 in court Rep. Webster had the courage to say this:
The citizens of this Commonwealth ARE demanding fiscal responsibility. They’re also demanding something further: personal responsibility.
Sorry Rep. Webster – it’s time for you to focus on your own personal finances before you have any input on legislation affecting the personal finances of six million.
Hypocrite.
Massachusetts HOUSE vote
Massachusetts SENATE vote
If only GOP Rep. Dan Webster practiced what he preached…
A weird tale that is somewhat reminiscent of Dianne Wilkerson's serial inability to comply with tax and campaign finance laws.
On April 3, 2006 the Massachusetts House of Representatives passed “An Act Providing Access to Affordable, Quality Accountable Healthcare” by a 155-2 vote. The two State Representatives who voted against this legislation will no doubt go down in history as the two biggest hypocrites in the history of the Massachusetts GOP Caucus, and it’s not because they continued to take advantage of a generous taxpayer-funded health care plan after voting against affordable healthcare for their constituents.
The first hypocrite is Jeff Perry of Sandwich. Rep. Perry spent his career decrying government waste. He even took the time in his farewell speech in 2011 to take a jab at public employees. Perry went on to take a $110,000/year job as Barnstable County Special Sheriff, a position that had been vacant for two years. But you knew that.
The second hypocrite you might not know – meet Rep. Daniel K. Webster. Much like Perry, Webster is a far-right wing Republican who aligns with Brian Camenker on social issues. He currently represents Duxbury, Halifax, Hanson, and Pembroke in the House of Representatives. I’d mention which town he resides in, but he moves around so much that I’m not exactly sure.
Like many members of the Mass GOP, Rep. Webster has spent his career campaigning on fiscal responsibility. He wants the Commonwealth to live within its means the way his constituents do. Unfortunately, instead of working to model the Commonwealth’s finances after that of his constituents, Dan Webster has been working to model his own finances after the Commonwealth’s. He’s done quite a good job at it, too.
Public records tell quite a tale of Webster’s fiscal IRresponsibility… Keep in mind that per financial disclosures filed with the state Webster takes home between $120,000 and $200,000 per year from his job at the State House and his law practice.
Webster’s first instance of public fiscal irresponsibility seems to have taken place during the period from 2005 through 2007. According to a 2009 decision by the OCPF, Webster’s campaign violated numerous aspects of campaign finance law by not reporting all of its’ expenditures, lying about the source of campaign contributions, not reporting campaign contributions, and receiving improper contributions. Webster was fined $1,000 and had to submit an increased number of campaign finance reports along with significant backup information for a period of two years. You have to give Webster credit for violating almost every aspect of campaign finance law – well done, Representative!
Tax Day 2006 came and passed without much action from Webster when he didn’t bother to pay the $6,658 he owed on his income tax return. The Internal Revenue Service filed a lien on Webster’s real estate on November 6, 2006. He waited until 2009 to pay it back – the lien was released on March 12, 2009.
June of 2007 marked the beginning of Webster’s failure to file payroll tax returns for his law firm. Between April 1, 2007 and June 30, 2008 Webster had failed to file six payroll returns for a total of $13,647 due to the federal government. The government slapped yet another lien on his real estate on October 6, 2008. Like any fiscally responsible Republican, Webster responded by doing the fiscally irresponsible thing: he didn’t pay the next payroll tax return that was due, either. He was rewarded with a third lien, this one for $57.46.
Based on the liens, one could guess cash was tight for Webster in 2008. He needed cash quick so he took out a $175,000 mortgage with Rockland Trust with his then-girlfriend in November of that year. Unfortunately it seems that Webster thought he was signing onto a “Get Rich Quick” scheme, not a mortgage. He failed to make more than a few payments on the mortgage and foreclosure proceedings began in 2010. The court docket for Rockland Trust v. Webster tells an interesting tale. The initial filing took place in August of 2010. Hearings were continued through June of 2011 when it was disclosed that Webster was in bankruptcy. In November of 2011 Webster was ordered to appear in court on February 13, 2012 at 2pm in Brockton for final judgment of the proceedings. Like any fiscally responsible Republican, Webster did the irresponsible thing: he didn’t show up at court. Webster defaulted on a $125,135 balance and the court further assessed him interest, costs, and attorney fees. The total judgment against Webster last month was $191,106.95.
2009 brought more trouble for Webster. He wrote a $40 check to renew his license, but the check bounced. As a result, his license to drive was suspended for a one month period beginning March 23, 2009. But something funny happened during that period – Webster drove to work twelve times and took home $312 in per diems for doing so. Driving on a suspended license is a criminal offense in Massachusetts with a penalty of up to $10,000 in fines and 60 days to 2-1/2 years in jail, while writing a bad check is just a civil offense.
2010 brought yet another license suspension over bounced checks, but this time Webster’s law license was suspended for mis-managing client funds. Every penny of client funds that come in and go out of an attorney’s IOLTA bank account must be properly accounted for. Webster failed to do this AND ignored requests by the Board of Bar Overseers for an explanation of the error. His license to practice law was suspended from June 4, 2010 through June 25, 2010. To apparently make up for lost legal income Webster drove himself to Beacon Hill 12 times during that three week period for another $312 in per diems.
The per diem thing REALLY bothers me. Fiscally responsible Republicans always decry wasteful spending like the per diem but they always seem to take them. Per diems make sense if you live in The Berkshires, Provincetown, Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket, but not Halifax or Hanson or Pembroke. Per diems are working out pretty well for Webster, though. He’s taken home over $10,000 worth since 2009. Based on that average Webster may well have taken home an additional $30,000 since being first elected… FOR DRIVING TO WORK!
Fortunately for us, Rep. Daniel K. Webster is a very humble man. With his history of financial ineptitude, Rep. Webster would never dare stand in the rostrum calling for fiscal responsibility.
Actually, he would. Two days after defaulting on almost $200,000 in court Rep. Webster had the courage to say this:
The citizens of this Commonwealth ARE demanding fiscal responsibility. They’re also demanding something further: personal responsibility.
Sorry Rep. Webster – it’s time for you to focus on your own personal finances before you have any input on legislation affecting the personal finances of six million.
Hypocrite.
Rep. Daniel Webster supported GOVERNMENT SPONSORED ADDICTION which will expand the bureaucracy, regulatory staffing and no one knows the COSTS.
When the article above was discovered, I posted it on Rep. Daniel Webster's facebook page and requested a response, after all, this is the public domain. Surely, Rep. Daniel Webster had a defensible explanation. Right?
Or is facebook only about Kissey Face/Huggy Lips?
Instead, it appears that Rep. Daniel Webster has deleted his facebook page and moved on with no explanation.
When a MASSACHUSETTS REPUBLICAN claims to be conservative, yet supports expanding GOVERNMENT, what does that say?
If we know that for every $1 GAMBLING pays to the state, the cost is $3, why would Republicans support it?
Massachusetts HOUSE vote
Massachusetts SENATE vote
Casino Capitalism and Insolvency
Folks, the Bubble has burst! It's over!
The inflated revenues and phony job figures will prevent even the capital markets from investing in SLOT BARNS, even in virgin territory.
Fini!
Caesars selling properties to raise $500 million
By JOSH KOSMAN
February 9, 2012
Caesars Entertainment shares soared 71 percent in their debut yesterday — but quietly, behind the glitz, America’s largest casino chain is selling some properties to raise $500 million, The Post has learned.
Caesars is auctioning its Midwest River casinos and will use the cash to invest in new projects — like a Massachusetts casino, two sources close to the situation said.
Non-binding bids are being accepted this week, the sources said.
A Caesars lender, unaware of the sale until alerted by a reporter, said,“I would find that to be a big, big departure from their stated plans.”
Indeed, money-losing Caesars said in its marketing effort that one of the casino’s advantages is that customers can use reward points at any of its 52 casinos.
The 10 properties that Caesars, formerly known as Harrah’s, is considering selling include Harrah’s in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana and Mississippi.
Caesars is not the only large casino struggling to finance expansion plans.
The Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority is trying to refinance debt by using its Mohegan Sun casino, the country’s second-biggest casino, as collateral — even though it sits on tribal land, according to Covenant Review, a bond research provider.
Such an undertaking would mark the first time an Indian tribe operating a casino on tribal land made such a move. It is unclear if Washington would allow it.
If the MTGA does not succeed in getting lenders holding 90 percent of $250 million in debt to swap for new notes with a later maturity, with the casino as collateral, it could default as soon as next month.
That would make it hard for the MTGA to raise the cash needed to complete expansion plans — including bidding on a new Massachusetts casino.
Caesars is not facing immediate collapse, but its debt problems are no less severe than what the MTGA faces.
Today, Caesars is expected to complete a $1.25 billion bond offering. It will use $1 billion of the proceeds to pay down $5 billion in loans due 2015.
With the $1 billion payment, the lenders will agree to extend the maturity on $2.5 billion of the remaining debt to 2018 — while jacking up the interest rate by 2.25 percentage points.
The higher interest payments will cost Caesars $100 million a year.
Overall, Caesars owes $19.6 billion.
Fortunately, Caesars has about $2 billion of liquidity, and no significant debt payments until 2015.
Caesars, even though it only sold 16.3 million shares in the IPO, now has the ability to trade debt for equity and reduce its loans, perhaps in the next six months, sources said.
Private-equity firms Apollo Management and TPG Capital bought Caesars in a $28 billion leveraged buyout in 2008.
Casinos jacked up their borrowings during the credit boom in the belief that Las Vegas, which had never had a down year, never would. But the recession caused gaming revenues to fall in 2008 and 2009.
A Caesars spokesman declined to comment. Mohegan Sun and government officials did not return calls.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/rolling_the_dice_h9p5omq8lR3tnpJ3ortUsN#ixzz1pJ4Hbffy
The inflated revenues and phony job figures will prevent even the capital markets from investing in SLOT BARNS, even in virgin territory.
Fini!
Caesars selling properties to raise $500 million
By JOSH KOSMAN
February 9, 2012
Caesars Entertainment shares soared 71 percent in their debut yesterday — but quietly, behind the glitz, America’s largest casino chain is selling some properties to raise $500 million, The Post has learned.
Caesars is auctioning its Midwest River casinos and will use the cash to invest in new projects — like a Massachusetts casino, two sources close to the situation said.
Non-binding bids are being accepted this week, the sources said.
A Caesars lender, unaware of the sale until alerted by a reporter, said,“I would find that to be a big, big departure from their stated plans.”
Indeed, money-losing Caesars said in its marketing effort that one of the casino’s advantages is that customers can use reward points at any of its 52 casinos.
The 10 properties that Caesars, formerly known as Harrah’s, is considering selling include Harrah’s in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana and Mississippi.
Caesars is not the only large casino struggling to finance expansion plans.
The Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority is trying to refinance debt by using its Mohegan Sun casino, the country’s second-biggest casino, as collateral — even though it sits on tribal land, according to Covenant Review, a bond research provider.
Such an undertaking would mark the first time an Indian tribe operating a casino on tribal land made such a move. It is unclear if Washington would allow it.
If the MTGA does not succeed in getting lenders holding 90 percent of $250 million in debt to swap for new notes with a later maturity, with the casino as collateral, it could default as soon as next month.
That would make it hard for the MTGA to raise the cash needed to complete expansion plans — including bidding on a new Massachusetts casino.
Caesars is not facing immediate collapse, but its debt problems are no less severe than what the MTGA faces.
Today, Caesars is expected to complete a $1.25 billion bond offering. It will use $1 billion of the proceeds to pay down $5 billion in loans due 2015.
With the $1 billion payment, the lenders will agree to extend the maturity on $2.5 billion of the remaining debt to 2018 — while jacking up the interest rate by 2.25 percentage points.
The higher interest payments will cost Caesars $100 million a year.
Overall, Caesars owes $19.6 billion.
Fortunately, Caesars has about $2 billion of liquidity, and no significant debt payments until 2015.
Caesars, even though it only sold 16.3 million shares in the IPO, now has the ability to trade debt for equity and reduce its loans, perhaps in the next six months, sources said.
Private-equity firms Apollo Management and TPG Capital bought Caesars in a $28 billion leveraged buyout in 2008.
Casinos jacked up their borrowings during the credit boom in the belief that Las Vegas, which had never had a down year, never would. But the recession caused gaming revenues to fall in 2008 and 2009.
A Caesars spokesman declined to comment. Mohegan Sun and government officials did not return calls.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/rolling_the_dice_h9p5omq8lR3tnpJ3ortUsN#ixzz1pJ4Hbffy
$500 MILLION? Senator Anthony Petrucelli Porks Us With the BILL!
In a 2010 article, Senator Anthony Petrucelli referenced the MASSIVE infrastructure improvements required for a SLOT BARN - yes! A SLOT BARN! Because that's what you'll get! at the SUFFOLK DOWNS location.
COSTS?
COSTS?
+$500 MILLION!
The REPORT is referenced HERE
Since there is NO indication that the reporter possessed or received more than the Senator's summary, I called the Senator's office and requested a copy or information about where it might be obtained.
NO RESPONSE!
I sent this letter:
February 21, 2012
Senator Anthony Petrucelli
State House
Room 424
Boston, MA 02133
Re: Public Records Request
Honorable Senator Petrucelli:
In a March 18, 2010 article by John Lynd in the East-Boston Times Free Press, you referenced a report prepare by John Vitagliano of Seagull Consulting regarding infrastructure improvements itemized here:
In his study, Vitagliano suggested widening Route 1A from Curtis Street in East Boston to Mahoney Circle in Revere. This would include property taking and cost $40 million; widen Revere Beach Parkway in Revere, Everett and Medford at a cost of $90 million; perform a Copeland Circle grade separation in Revere that would cost $75 million; perform a Mahoney Circle grade separation in Revere that would cost $30 million; perform a Brown Circle grade separation in Revere that would cost $25 million; install a Route 1A to Route 16 connector on Railroad Ave. in Revere at a cost of $45 million; construct a haul road in East Boston at a cost of $20 million; build a Route 1A-Chelsea Street Bridge connector in East Boston that would cost $40 million; perform a Route 1A/Boardman Street grade separation in East Boston that would cost $10 million; build a Route 1A-Route 16 interchange that would cost $15 million; perform a Revere Street grade separation in Revere that would cost $10 million; improve traffic signalization along the Route 1A corridor at a cost of $5 million; and finally mitigation for traffic impacts on the local communities would be $15 million.
The total cost of the improvements would have a price tag of $420 million according to Vitagliano.
This is a request in accordance with the Massachusetts Public Records Law (M.G.L. Chapter 66, Section10) to obtain a copy of the report prepared by Mr. Vitagliano.
As you may be aware, the Public Records Law requires you to provide me with a written response within 10 calendar days. If you cannot comply with my request, you are statutorily required to provide an explanation in writing.
You prompt attention is appreciated.
I sent this letter (certified), received on FEBRUARY 24, 2012.
USPS - https://tools.usps.com/go/TrackConfirmAction.action
Tracking #:70112000000252605663
NO RESPONSE!
Do you see a pattern here?
On Facebook, I was a 'Friend of Senator Petrucelli' and posted the letter on his facebook page asking about the REPORT.
I'm new to this stuff and don't know how it works, but the Senator UNFRIENDED ME!
How UNFRIENDLY!
I have cried myself to sleep ever since!
But, WAIT! This slimey deal gets even better!
Both Senator Anthony Petrucelli and Boston Mayor Tom Menino received 'charitable contributions' from one of the owners of SUFFOLK DOWNS who was just sooooo charitable even though he lives in WYOMING, he took pity on the poor children of Boston and wanted them to have Christmas gifts.
The Boston Globe recommended that the 'donations' be returned, we won't get into whether the Senator's charity has cleared up its legalities.
Although they were technically legal, one might argue that the intent was to escape CAMPAIGN DONATION LIMITS.
Read HERE
Setting aside PAID FOR ACCESS, the MASSIVE cost of infrastructure, the slimy, backroom politics, 95% of Massachusetts residents believe politicians are CORRUPT. And this is why.
But, regrettably there's MORE!
The CASINO VULTURE hovering to invade SUFFOLK DOWNS is financially INSOLVENT. That would be Caesars, formerly known as Harrah's.
(On the right side, you'll find links to both names. When Harrah's determined that 90% of their profits originated from 10% of their patrons, they targeted, marketed, pursued and comped those patrons - low rollers!)
Caesars selling properties to raise $500 million
The party's OVER! This is a bankruptcy waiting to happen!
Cross posted on BMG: http://bluemassgroup.com/2012/03/the-suffolk-downs-scam/
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Foxwoods Is Fighting for Its Life
Foxwoods Is Fighting for Its Life
By MICHAEL SOKOLOVE
The New York Times Magazine
Nearly everything about the Foxwoods Resort Casino is improbable, beginning with its scale. It is the largest casino in the Western Hemisphere — a gigantic, labyrinthine wonderland set down in a cedar forest and swamp in an otherwise sleepy corner of southeastern Connecticut. Forty thousand patrons pack into Foxwoods on weekend days.
The place has 6,300 slot machines. Ten thousand employees. If you include everything — hotel space, bars and restaurants, theaters and ballrooms, spa, bowling alley — Foxwoods measures about 6.7 million square feet, more than the Pentagon.
The owner of this enterprise is the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation. Once powerful and even feared, the Pequots were nearly extinguished in one day — in fact, in just one hour — when English colonists and their Indian allies attacked and torched the main Pequot village near Mystic in the spring of 1637. The survivors were sold into slavery or given over to neighboring tribes. The colonists even barred the use of the Pequot name, “in order to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth,” as the leader of the raiding party later wrote.
In the early 1970s, just one resident remained on a Pequot reservation in Ledyard, now the site of Foxwoods — an elderly woman named Elizabeth George. Her grandson was Richard Hayward (known as Skip), a pipe welder and a former short-order cook with an audacious vision, innate political skills and a flair for dealmaking. Through his efforts, the tribe won federal recognition in 1983. In 1986, it opened a high-stakes bingo hall. Full-blown casino gambling came to Foxwoods in 1992 and in the two decades since has produced not millions but billions of dollars of revenue. Not surprisingly, the casino and its largess rejuvenated the tribe, whose population is now about 900. (Members trace their bloodlines to 11 Pequot families counted in a 1900 census.)
These days the tribe is dealing with the latest improbability in its turbulent history: financial havoc. The casino is underwater, like a five-bedroom Spanish colonial in a Nevada subdivision. The Pequots misjudged the market, borrowed too much and expanded unwisely. Foxwoods’s debt is on a scale befitting the size of the property — $2.3 billion.
It would be easy to look at what has occurred at Foxwoods and think, Here are people who fell into money and didn’t know how to handle it. Which happens to be true. But how the casino reached this point, and the challenges its owners and operators now confront, is part of a much larger story — one involving the gradual relaxation of moral prohibitions against gambling, a desperate search for new revenue by state governments and the proliferation of new casinos across America. Casino gambling has become a commodity, available within a day’s drive to the vast majority of U.S. residents. Some in the industry talk of there being an oversupply, as if their product were lumber or soybeans.
Foxwoods has had its own in-state competition since 1996 from the Mohegan Sun, which lies just west, across the Thames River. Owned by the Mohegan Tribe, it is a more modest property, though only by comparison — Mohegan is the second-largest casino in the hemisphere. In October, a casino opened at the Aqueduct racetrack in Queens with 4,500 slot machines, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo is pushing an expansion plan for the site that includes a hotel and what would be the nation’s largest convention center. And lawmakers in Massachusetts recently voted to issue licenses for a slots parlor and three full resort casinos — an especially ominous development for the Connecticut casinos, which draw about 30 percent of their clientele from Massachusetts, because many gamblers are ruled by what is known in the business as the law of gravity. They stop where the pull is the strongest, which is usually the nearest casino.
Scott Butera is Foxwoods’s chief executive, its seventh since 2007. Some of the Pequots call him Eagle, for Eagle Eyes, because he notices everything, whether it’s an error in a financial document or a slight stain in a carpet. Some also refer to the tall, gaunt Butera as Woody, after the character in the “Toy Story” movies. Butera, who is 45, has managed troubled casino operations for Donald Trump and Carl Icahn, so he is accustomed to difficult bosses and jobs. In the industry, he is known as a turnaround artist. “My wife keeps telling me to get out of the restructuring business,” he said recently as we sat in his spacious office across from the Grand Pequot Tower, one of several high-rises in the Foxwoods complex. “It just sucks you dry.”
(Page 2 of 9)
This job is Butera’s most complex yet. The initial lender to Foxwoods was Genting, a Malaysian conglomerate, but the tribe is now indebted to an enormous tangle of banks and bondholders. The fact that Foxwoods is on sovereign tribal land complicates everything. It means the lenders cannot foreclose and take control of the gambling operation but also that Foxwoods probably doesn’t qualify for Chapter 11 — a conundrum that Butera described as “sort of like being stuck in no man’s land” and one that financial backers of Indian casinos apparently did not foresee until Foxwoods tanked. “We have six layers of creditors and, within each layer, 20 to 40 institutions,” Butera told me.“It’s unbelievable. What you have to do is convince them that $2.3 billion of debt is not worth $2.3 billion. And it’s not. Our junior debt was trading at 5 cents on the dollar. So you want to come to a place where even though the lenders are getting a haircut on the face value, they know they’re getting an incredible lift on what it’s actually worth. That’s the magic.”
Butera’s interactions with the Pequots, his bosses, involve a different kind of magic — something more like family therapy. The tribe built new housing, a child-development center, ballfields and tennis courts, a spacious community building with a health club and an indoor-outdoor pool; just about everything on the reservation, which lies “across the swamp” from the casino, as tribal members put it, is faced in exquisitely crafted stone. The pièce de résistance was a $225 million museum to commemorate the Pequots’ tragic history and stunning resurrection.
The costliest regular expenditures were the annual dividends of at least $100,000 given to each adult member of the tribe. Cumulatively, they amounted to as much as $500 million over nearly two decades. They were called incentive payments, though for many they were actually disincentives to work. Children began getting the disbursements when they turned 18. Luxury automobiles abounded. The payments stopped just before Butera arrived in late 2010, and more Pequots have been going to work at Foxwoods. “You had this big moneymaking enterprise with a limited amount of mouths to feed,” Butera said. “But everything’s about austerity now. It’s no different than what a family would do. You’ve got to get rid of the cable TV. You’ve got to get rid of the Cadillac. You’re not going to go out to eat anymore.”
Butera and I set off on a walk around Foxwoods’s gambling floors and hotel and retail spaces, a tour he takes a couple of times a day. He was limping, though not as badly as before recent hip-replacement surgery. He had put off the operation as long as he could but decided that the leader of such a struggling venture should not look as if each step he takes may be his last. “Have you been up to the Paragon?” he asked me, referring to a rooftop restaurant and casino designed for high rollers. “We have like 15 kinds of Brazilian wood in there. It’s just insane.” He said he had seen plans for future improvements, all based on expectations that the money would never stop flowing. “Incredible, creative stuff,” he said. “Water parks. Monorails. Indoor skiing. It was going to be Disneyland under a glass roof.”
The glamour and sexiness of casinos can be highly overrated. Depending on your mood (and how much you’ve had to drink), Las Vegas can be alluring, weirdly fascinating or just disgusting. Foxwoods, under any circumstances, is not really sexy. It’s New England. The furniture in the hotel rooms is big and overstuffed and makes you think about curling up and reading a book. (A renovation to modernize them is under way.) Some of the retail space in the vast corridors between its four large casinos is meant to look like a flea market. In one of these hallways, a brick facade has a sign that says “Town Hall” and is meant to evoke . . . well, it’s not clear. Perhaps a polling place for the New Hampshire primary.
Foxwoods planned to close at 2 a.m. after its grand opening on Feb. 15, 1992, but hundreds of gamblers remained inside, so the lights stayed on, the dealers kept dealing and ever since — through hurricanes, blizzards and national crises — it has remained open every minute of every day. The region was starved for gambling. Located halfway between New York City and Boston, Foxwoods expanded as quickly as it could build, adding casino space and hotel rooms with little regard for cost or coherence.
(Page 3 of 9)
In 2006, the tribe began construction on a new tower, the MGM Grand at Foxwoods. The project is what finally sent Foxwoods into a financial tailspin. By the time it opened in 2008 — with 800 hotel rooms, 1,400 slot machines and a 4,000-seat theater — the recession had hit and was deepening. “I can understand the mind-set at the time that behemoth was coming out of the ground,” Rodney Butler, who was elected chairman of the Pequot tribe in 2009, said when I visited his office. “The human spirit wants to believe that everyone is entrepreneurial. And it’s fun to do, right? You figure you had one great success, you can have more. That’s the American way.”
It was not just entrepreneurial zeal that caused the Pequots to overreach. “Every consultant, every analyst and every banker on the planet encouraged us to keep getting bigger,” Butler said. “If it wasn’t for that, I’d say, Jeez, maybe we’re just idiots. But these were smart people. Then we opened the doors at the MGM Grand, and five months later, Lehman crashes and the world falls apart.”
Some people erroneously address Butler as Chief, a ceremonial and spiritual position that the Pequots have not filled for decades. If you didn’t know his background, you might assume he is a light-skinned African-American. The 11 family lines include strains of many other ethnicities, and most Pequots are a mix of several. Some just look white. (In “Hitting the Jackpot,” published in 2003, Brett D. Fromson documents a history of racial tension in the tribe that deepened with the building of Foxwoods and the money it produced.) Butler, 35, played football at the University of Connecticut, earned a degree in finance and serves on the board of the local United Way. He is analytical and low-key, a contrast to Skip Hayward, the tribal leader who cut the deals that built Foxwoods in a joint called Mr. Pizza and held court late into the night at local bars.
I told Butler that I found the Pequot Museum impressive. “You don’t think it’s a little over the top?” he said. Well, yes, but the exhibits make clear, in a way a casino never could, that the Pequots were a significant people whose reach once extended across much of southern New England. In the raid that nearly wiped out the Pequots, the Mohegans were among the colonists’ primary allies. “And now we’ve got dueling casinos,” Butler said. “This year will be the 375th anniversary of the year they rallied against us with the colonists. There’s still some bad blood over that, a little animosity, but mostly, we recognize them as our cousins, and we work well together.”
The Pequots, even with their substantial political clout in Connecticut, may not have been able to keep the Mohegans out of the casino market. But they never really mobilized against them. “They thought the cluster of casinos would bring more business,” Butera told me. “It didn’t work out that way. Would we be better off if Mohegan wasn’t here? Yeah, but they’re not going away.”
The Mohegan Sun enjoys several advantages, starting with its location. It is just off an exit on I-395, while Foxwoods is a 20-minute ride down a winding two-lane road. Mohegan has a younger clientele and a hipper vibe. When you enter its main hotel lobby, you notice right away that the lighting is better and the music more current. The idea behind Foxwoods’s new MGM Grand Tower was to add an element of glitz and to create an ambience — right down to the revealing outfits of the servers in the casino — that might attract some of Mohegan’s younger patrons.
Mohegan is smaller, but in recent years it has generated more revenue. The Mohegans own a second casino, in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania, and are expected to compete for a license in Massachusetts. (Foxwoods won a license to build a casino in Philadelphia, but its financial problems prompted the state’s gaming control board to revoke it in 2010.) The Mohegan Sun has struggled recently, too, and the tribe is seeking to restructure its debt, but the casino’s problems are not considered as deep, and its management has been more stable and nimble. Speaking to a gathering of financial analysts in 2009, Mitchell Etess, the Mohegan Sun’s C.E.O., said, “We’ve been very cautious, especially lately, to make sure everybody realizes we’re not Foxwoods.”
(Page 4 of 9)
Casinos came to Nevada in 1931 and were not legalized anywhere else in the U.S. for nearly five decades, an indication of how many Americans regarded gambling as squarely within the realm of vice and sin. In 1978, casinos opened in a second location, Atlantic City. It is not coincidental that the seaside resort was already a fallen place, poor and crime-ridden and hanging on to its one unique attraction, the annual Miss America Pageant.
You can still hear echoes of a time when gambling was widely considered wicked. When Rodney Butler raised the prospect of dropping the gambling age in Connecticut from 21 to 18 and allowing liquor sales until 4 a.m., The Hartford Courant’s editorial page objected, writing, “Why not just open a brothel?”
Resistance to gambling, however, has been overwhelmed by the need for new sources of public revenue in an era when it has become nearly impossible, at any level of government, to raise taxes or even to let temporary tax cuts expire. A kind of self-perpetuating momentum fuels gambling’s growth: the more states that legalize it, the more politicians in states that haven’t done so argue that if their citizens are going to throw money into slot machines, they might as well do it at home. “Those people would lose that money anyway,” Ed Rendell, the voluble former governor of Pennsylvania, said in a tense appearance on “60 Minutes” last year. Teeth clenched, he continued, “You’re simpletons, you’re idiots if you don’t get that.”
Butera reacts to the debates over gambling with a sense of amusement. “Few governors or senators or House members want to say, ‘I absolutely love having casinos in my market,’ ” he said. “It’s more like: ‘We can manage this. And here’s what we’ll do. We’ll put it in the right place, it won’t impact our society too much and we’ll make some money.’ ”
Casino gambling exists in 36 states. Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in 1988, and around 450 Indian casinos now dot the American landscape. Some are no more than trailers on barren, remote land, but several are large resort casinos near major population centers.
Connecticut’s agreement, or compact, with the Pequots permits various table games at Foxwoods, including blackjack, poker and roulette, along with lesser-known games of chance like chuck-a-luck, pan game, money-wheels and bouncing ball. The main action at Foxwoods and everywhere in the U.S. casino market, though, is slots, which in most casinos account for at least 70 percent of gambling revenues. Foxwoods agreed to pay the state 25 percent of the “hold” from slot machines — the money that gamblers put in and is not returned to them in winnings. While casino opponents in Connecticut have attributed increased traffic, crime and gambling addiction to Foxwoods and Mohegan, those problems would have to be breathtakingly deep and costly to equal the dollars that have flowed to the state.
In January, Mohegan’s hold from its slots was $52 million; Foxwoods’s was $46 million. Connecticut’s share from both came to $24.8 million. Over the last two decades, the monthly payments have added about $6 billion to the state treasury. About half of that is estimated to have come from out-of-state residents, the majority of them from Massachusetts and New York. “Some states weren’t paying attention — they just thought Indian casinos were going to be big bingo halls,” Clyde W. Barrow, director of the Center for Policy Analysis at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and an expert on the New England casino market, told me. “Connecticut was ahead of the game. They understood the potential.”
Non-Indian gambling operations, known as commercial casinos, have multiplied in every region of the country: from the stolid Midwest, where Iowa alone has 17 commercial casinos, to Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, which has become a mini-Las Vegas, to the mid-Atlantic region, the latest boom market. A proposed $1 billion casino in Maryland has attracted powerful business and political support. It would be on the banks of the Potomac, about 10 miles south of the White House.
(Page 5 of 9)
Most people probably would not guess which state reaps the most revenue from its casinos. It is Pennsylvania, which in 2010 collected $1.3 billion from slots and table-game revenues. The state had just 10 casinos, but Rendell negotiated an agreement that requires them to turn over 55 percent of the hold from their slots to the state — an advantageous deal for the public and one that showed other states what casino owners will tolerate to gain entry into a market. “It is considered a privilege to be in this industry, and we pay for that privilege in very high taxes,” Frank Fahrenkopf, the president of the American Gaming Association, told me when I visited his office in Washington.
The silver-haired Fahrenkopf, a chairman of the Republican National Committee in the Reagan years, is known as an adroit Washington player, the type who can make light of his high status while also fully inhabiting it. He showed me what he called his “I love me” wall, pictures of him with other important people. “Everybody in Washington has to have one,” he said. “That’s me with Helmut and Margaret,” he said of one picture, signaling his first-name relationships with Helmut Kohl and Margaret Thatcher.
The A.G.A. represents only commercial casinos, 566 of them in 22 states. An economic impact study commissioned by the organization last year counted $34.6 billion in nationwide gambling revenues in 2010. That represents money that individuals bet, lost and left behind in casinos. According to the study, casinos supported 820,000 jobs, created $125 billion in spending and accounted for close to 1 percent of the U.S. gross-domestic product. (Those figures come from only commercial casinos. Foxwoods, Mohegan and other Indian casinos were not included.) “I know there are people who hate this industry and who are always going to hate this industry,” Fahrenkopf said. “If you look at polling, it’s a solid 15 percent, and the other 85 percent are O.K. with it. But you see the contribution we make, in terms of jobs, and the taxes we pay. We’re proud of that.”
The name of the organization Fahrenkopf leads, the American Gaming Association, drops the “b” and the “l” from “gambling.” In fact, no one in the casino business says “gambling.” They are in the business of “gaming” — an enterprise that could not exist without euphemisms and various legal workarounds. There are, for example, the so-called riverboat casinos that get around prohibitions against gambling on land; most of the boats never leave the shoreline. Some Midwest casinos are plopped down in shallow water in concrete basins and are known as “boats in a moat.”
The racino, a more recent innovation, is a slots parlor built at an existing horse-racing track — ground already touched and therefore tainted by gambling. In February, I took the A train from Midtown Manhattan to South Ozone Park in Queens, where a racino has been joined to the century-old Aqueduct racetrack. It is called the Resorts World Casino New York City and is owned by a subsidiary of the Genting Group, the corporation that financed the construction of Foxwoods. Even on a Monday afternoon, thousands of people — white, black, Asian and Hispanic, drawn from the great melting pot of Queens and nearby boroughs and suburbs — were playing the slot machines. Except technically they weren’t slots, but video lottery terminals, or V.L.T.’s.
What’s a V.L.T.? It’s a slot machine.
Under New York state law, however, slots are illegal. With a V.L.T., the result of each play is determined by a central computer and not by circuitry within the machine itself, as is the case with slot machines. That somehow makes it legal. Most gamblers wouldn’t notice a difference, and no one I talked to inside Aqueduct, not even people who worked there, had ever heard of a V.L.T.
(Page 6 of 9)
Governor Cuomo wants New York to change its state constitution to permit Las Vegas-style gambling with table games, live dealers and slot machines that can be called slot machines. His pitch is based on the prospect of gaining new revenues for the state — and overturning the hypocrisy of the current system. “In a perfect world, there would be no casinos,” he told the editorial board of The Syracuse Post-Standard in February. Referring to New York’s “hodgepodge” of Indian casinos and state-sanctioned racinos, he said: “We have 29,000 gambling machines in this state, more than Atlantic City. . . . You have gaming! You’re just in denial of the reality.”
A casino floor can seem like a throwback to a time decades ago when personal habits were judged less harshly and physical fitness was not considered such a virtue. “Sometimes, it’s a beautiful day out, and you think to yourself, Oh, God, nobody’s going to come in here,” Scott Butera told me in one of our conversations. “But they do. Our crowd wants to sit in front of a slot machine, smoke a cigarette and drink. They’re not going water skiing out at Mystic Seaport.”
A substantial number of casino patrons have mobility issues, and you see a lot of wheelchairs. People who work on casino floors take pride in getting to know their regular customers, the names of their children and grandchildren and even their health issues. “You look around here, and 45 is young,” Butera said as we walked between rows of slots at Foxwoods.
The slot machines themselves, in the cartoonish and often hilarious political incorrectness of their imagery, hark back to some other era — for example, crudely drawn geishas, Asian “emperors” and a “bandito” in a game called More Chilis that would embarrass the proprietor of the lowest-end Tex-Mex joint you can imagine. At the casino industry’s big annual convention in Las Vegas, which is in part a trade show for slots manufacturers, a machine called Girls Day Out included a leather purse and a purple cocktail dress among its spinning icons. The featured icons in its companion game, Guys Night, were things meant to get men excited: dancing girls, cigars, overstuffed hamburgers. The big new rollout at the show was a “Ghostbusters” slot machine, a homage to the 1984 movie. The game’s audio played a section of dialogue from the movie, which seemed like a sly insertion of the designers’ dark humor: “We’d like to get a sample of your brain tissue.”
Foxwoods does have table games, including blackjack and poker. Most casinos of any size court big players, those who will risk hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. High rollers are brought in by private jet and helicopter, installed in sumptuous suites with butler service and sometimes granted specially tailored rules on their game of choice. In some cases, casinos will even agree in advance to discount losses: if a player comes in with, say, a $1 million bankroll and loses it all, $200,000 will be returned.
The table games pose some risk for casinos. When I was at Foxwoods, the casino had just been “beaten,” as Butera put it, for close to $1 million by a blackjack player. “It happens,” he said.
Butera told me about another blackjack player who had recently beaten several Atlantic City casinos for more than $15 million. According to published reports, the player, a Pennsylvania businessman named Don Johnson, won $5.8 million at the Tropicana in just 12 hours. The word in the industry was that Johnson benefited from his own solid strategy, a run of great luck and rules that were tilted too much in his direction. He apparently was allowed to bet relatively small amounts when the deck was not in his favor, and up to $100,000 on a single hand when it was. (Also, under typical casino rules, if a blackjack player is dealt two aces, he can split those aces and play two hands, but if he gets another on the next deal, he can’t split again. Johnson was allowed to split aces a third and even a fourth time.)
(Page 7 of 9)
The lesson that Butera and others on his management team drew was that the Atlantic City casinos had negotiated away too much of their house advantage, something they said was common at Foxwoods under previous management teams. Butera told me that he has instructed those under him to “just say no and let a guy walk down the street and play somewhere else” rather than agree to rules that shave off too much of the casino’s advantage. We were on the gambling floor, and Butera was focused, as he often is, on his dealers. He wants them to be friendly and to “root for the player to win” but to keep the game brisk. “The more hands a player is dealt, the better it is for us,” he said. Butera, who has an M.B.A. from N.Y.U., invoked a gambling term — “vig,” short for “vigorish,” meaning the house’s cut of the action. “The math is the math,” he said. “Over time, we’ll make our vig.”
At the annual Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas last October, I listened as A. K. Singh, a mathematician and professor of gaming at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, advised a roomful of casino executives that they could probably increase the hold on their slot machines by a percentage point or two without losing business. He said that some academic literature suggested that skilled slots players would notice, but he disagreed. “What is a skilled player?” he said with a laugh. “There is no skill.”
The difference between table games and slot machines is that slots are entirely predictable. They’re like A.T.M.’s, but in reverse — programmed to take money from players, usually about 9 cents of every dollar wagered, while producing frequent near misses, the illusion that a big jackpot was at hand if only, say, just one more overstuffed burger had landed on the pay line. The lower the house’s hold on a slot machine — and the higher the number of small payouts — the longer a player’s T.O.D. (time on device). It’s a fine balance. Casinos want customers to lose their money, but not so rapidly that they’ll feel the whole experience was a bummer and not want to return.
The gaming confab, known as G2E, offers a sort of crash course in the state of the industry. “We have the power to control luck,” Michael Meczka, a veteran casino marketing consultant from Los Angeles, said at another session. But much of the rest of his presentation was about the uncertainty gripping the business, what casinos cannot control. His remarks, in fact, were a bit grim — they reminded me of the despair you hear in the newspaper business over the advanced age of the core customers and the fear that younger people do not like the product enough to replace them.
Millions of younger Americans who like to gamble are playing online poker, hosted on offshore sites. They may never become casino habitués. So at the same time that brick-and-mortar casinos are proliferating, the demographics may be working against the industry. The A.G.A. is lobbying for legalization of online poker in the United States and for strict regulation of it — a rare case of an industry’s seeking regulation. The strategy would likely put those who already own casinos in a favored position in the new online world.
The big buzzword in the business right now is “cannibalization.” It refers, in this context, to casinos’ gobbling up one anothers’ customers, which for some of them may be the only route to survival. Fahrenkopf, the A.G.A. president, said he was not worried. “What about Starbucks?” he said as I sat in his Washington office. “A block east of here, a block west, a block north is a Starbucks. How much is too much? The market will decide.”
Las Vegas, still the anchor of the gambling industry in the U.S., was battered by the recession, and its revenues from gambling still lag far behind 2007 levels. The city’s recovery could be hurt by a building boom in big Indian casinos in California — and, over time, by new properties in New York, Massachusetts and other Northeast states. The biggest winner in Las Vegas in recent years has been Sheldon Adelson, chairman of the company that owns the Venetian, but what has made him one of the wealthiest men in the world is not his U.S. holdings but his ownership of hugely profitable casinos in the Chinese territory of Macao. (Adelson has been in the news recently because he and his wife have contributed more than $10 million to support Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign.)
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Farhrenkopf acknowledged that when the market does decide, it can have adverse consequences — in Atlantic City, for example, where casino revenue is down 37 percent since 2006 and the city’s future as a gambling mecca is very much in doubt. Rooms at hotel casinos have been going for as little as $19 a night. At least four casinos have been in bankruptcy, and people are no longer crowding onto buses to head south down the Atlantic City Expressway. “The Pennsylvania casinos are killing Atlantic City,” he said. “That’s where the Philadelphia market used to go, but now they can stay home.”
It’s that specter — once-loyal players who disappear — that Foxwoods must worry about. At the Las Vegas conference, Meczka said that when people in the industry tell him they want new customers, his response is: “There aren’t any new customers out there. Gaming is an aged community. . . . Anyone who has ever wanted to try a casino has tried a casino.” In other words, the market is not expanding — only the venues meant to cater to a finite number of gamblers.
When I toured Foxwoods with Christopher O’Connell, the vice president for hotel operations, we looked at some of the back-room operations: a call center, where about 130 people, divided among three shifts, book reservations and answer other inquiries; a corridor with a long line of lockers, where dealers store their personal belongings; cafeterias that serve about 5,000 meals a day to employees. In better economic times, these might seem like lower-level service-industry jobs. In the current climate, they just looked like jobs.
O’Connell grew up in Ledyard, Conn., and was a basketball star at Ledyard High. “There was no reason to ever go to this side of town,” he told me. “It was a swamp, that’s all, and a reservation, but there was hardly anything on the reservation.” He has worked there for most of his adult life. “I’m interested to see what happens with Aqueduct,” he said. “They don’t have table games yet, but everyone figures they will. With Massachusetts, it’s only a matter of time before they get casinos. It’s scary from my perspective.”
When Butera showed me around the property, it was clear that much about it irritates him. The restaurant choices, for starters. “You want a steak, we’ll give you a steak,” he said. “You want a doughnut, you can have that. We just don’t have much in between. We need a Yard House, an Applebee’s, a T. G. I. Friday’s, a Cheesecake Factory.” He noted the absence of a seafood restaurant. “We’re in New England, and we don’t have a fish house?” We walked by some of the flea-market-like retail. “All this honky-tonk has to go,” he said.
What encourages Butera is the immensity of the property and the richness of what has already been built. “I mean, you look at this place, the money that’s in the ground, nobody could afford to do that now. But the good news is it’s already here. We’ve got it. The business needs to evolve, but the foundation that exists is unbelievable.”
A successful turnaround artist does more than negotiate favorable terms with lenders. He must tell a story. He elucidates what went wrong in the past and how it will be better in the future. It can help to be blunt about previous management, even harsh — like a defense lawyer pleading for a new trial for his client on the basis that the previous attorney was incompetent. Butera brought in an almost entirely new management team, including people he knew from Las Vegas and Atlantic City. It wasn’t easy to attract them, because everyone had to relocate — and to an entity perceived as failing. “There was poor management here for an extended period of time,” Butera told me. “So we needed to make a lot of changes.”
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Revenues have continued to fall at Foxwoods, as they have for the last half-dozen years. But lately, the casino’s profits have been increasing. “We changed our focus to profitability,” Butera said, which sounds a little like something out of a story in The Onion. (The previous focus was on unprofitability?) But what he meant was that Foxwoods had stopped chasing unproductive customers — table-game players whose perks added up to more than their losses — just to increase traffic.
On Feb. 15, the 20th anniversary of casino gambling at Foxwoods, Butera and Rodney Butler, chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, proposed a broader plan for how the business would go forward. In one way, it was a return to the past. Foxwoods will expand. But this time, in a different way. It will not be adding gambling capacity. Instead, the plan is to build a 300,000-square-foot retail center, including 75 outlet stores, between the new MGM Grand Tower and the rest of Foxwoods. The area is currently dead space, a long walk for a lot of people who don’t enjoy walking.
Luxury outlet malls are considered a good mix with casinos, because the core customer is the same as a typical slots player: a middle-aged woman with money to spend. “It’s going to be a fabulous tenant roster,” Butera said. “If you’re a retailer, what’s your biggest concern? You’re going to open the store, and nobody’s going to come. We’ve got 40,000 people here every Saturday wanting to do something and not wanting to go anywhere else. They’re captive.”
But of course, nothing is really as profitable as the casino end of a resort casino. No goods or services, in a traditional sense, are exchanged. People come through the door for the experience of risking — and usually losing — their money. Gambling, like professional sports, is entertainment — but without the multimillion-dollar salaries for the performers. And no pro sports franchise generates cash hour by hour, day after day, like a big thriving casino.
By the beginning of this year, Butera and the tribe were close to an agreement with their lenders, though the details will still take months to finalize. The $2.3 billion debt is expected to be reduced to about $1.7 billion, but with lower interest rates that will ensure financial flexibility for Foxwoods.
The plan for the outlet mall was a signal to lenders that two decades of grandiosity at Foxwoods have come to an end. Foxwoods had been an early mover, built to stand astride a huge geographic area — much like the Pequot tribe once dominated a big swath of New England. But as the casino business in America has expanded, Foxwoods’s piece of it has become smaller and will continue to shrink.
“You can’t fight the tide,” Butera said as we sat in his office. He brought up the example of Atlantic City. The State of New Jersey is likely to reap less money from its tables and slots — just as Connecticut and other states that have come to rely on gambling will see their share decrease as others get into the market. But he believes individual casinos with a good plan can survive. “It’s the exact same thing here,” Butera said. “We can still have a great business. We just can’t have the same business we used to have.”
Michael Sokolove is a contributing writer for the magazine.
Editor: Dean Robinson
By MICHAEL SOKOLOVE
The New York Times Magazine
Nearly everything about the Foxwoods Resort Casino is improbable, beginning with its scale. It is the largest casino in the Western Hemisphere — a gigantic, labyrinthine wonderland set down in a cedar forest and swamp in an otherwise sleepy corner of southeastern Connecticut. Forty thousand patrons pack into Foxwoods on weekend days.
The place has 6,300 slot machines. Ten thousand employees. If you include everything — hotel space, bars and restaurants, theaters and ballrooms, spa, bowling alley — Foxwoods measures about 6.7 million square feet, more than the Pentagon.
The owner of this enterprise is the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation. Once powerful and even feared, the Pequots were nearly extinguished in one day — in fact, in just one hour — when English colonists and their Indian allies attacked and torched the main Pequot village near Mystic in the spring of 1637. The survivors were sold into slavery or given over to neighboring tribes. The colonists even barred the use of the Pequot name, “in order to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth,” as the leader of the raiding party later wrote.
In the early 1970s, just one resident remained on a Pequot reservation in Ledyard, now the site of Foxwoods — an elderly woman named Elizabeth George. Her grandson was Richard Hayward (known as Skip), a pipe welder and a former short-order cook with an audacious vision, innate political skills and a flair for dealmaking. Through his efforts, the tribe won federal recognition in 1983. In 1986, it opened a high-stakes bingo hall. Full-blown casino gambling came to Foxwoods in 1992 and in the two decades since has produced not millions but billions of dollars of revenue. Not surprisingly, the casino and its largess rejuvenated the tribe, whose population is now about 900. (Members trace their bloodlines to 11 Pequot families counted in a 1900 census.)
These days the tribe is dealing with the latest improbability in its turbulent history: financial havoc. The casino is underwater, like a five-bedroom Spanish colonial in a Nevada subdivision. The Pequots misjudged the market, borrowed too much and expanded unwisely. Foxwoods’s debt is on a scale befitting the size of the property — $2.3 billion.
It would be easy to look at what has occurred at Foxwoods and think, Here are people who fell into money and didn’t know how to handle it. Which happens to be true. But how the casino reached this point, and the challenges its owners and operators now confront, is part of a much larger story — one involving the gradual relaxation of moral prohibitions against gambling, a desperate search for new revenue by state governments and the proliferation of new casinos across America. Casino gambling has become a commodity, available within a day’s drive to the vast majority of U.S. residents. Some in the industry talk of there being an oversupply, as if their product were lumber or soybeans.
Foxwoods has had its own in-state competition since 1996 from the Mohegan Sun, which lies just west, across the Thames River. Owned by the Mohegan Tribe, it is a more modest property, though only by comparison — Mohegan is the second-largest casino in the hemisphere. In October, a casino opened at the Aqueduct racetrack in Queens with 4,500 slot machines, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo is pushing an expansion plan for the site that includes a hotel and what would be the nation’s largest convention center. And lawmakers in Massachusetts recently voted to issue licenses for a slots parlor and three full resort casinos — an especially ominous development for the Connecticut casinos, which draw about 30 percent of their clientele from Massachusetts, because many gamblers are ruled by what is known in the business as the law of gravity. They stop where the pull is the strongest, which is usually the nearest casino.
Scott Butera is Foxwoods’s chief executive, its seventh since 2007. Some of the Pequots call him Eagle, for Eagle Eyes, because he notices everything, whether it’s an error in a financial document or a slight stain in a carpet. Some also refer to the tall, gaunt Butera as Woody, after the character in the “Toy Story” movies. Butera, who is 45, has managed troubled casino operations for Donald Trump and Carl Icahn, so he is accustomed to difficult bosses and jobs. In the industry, he is known as a turnaround artist. “My wife keeps telling me to get out of the restructuring business,” he said recently as we sat in his spacious office across from the Grand Pequot Tower, one of several high-rises in the Foxwoods complex. “It just sucks you dry.”
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This job is Butera’s most complex yet. The initial lender to Foxwoods was Genting, a Malaysian conglomerate, but the tribe is now indebted to an enormous tangle of banks and bondholders. The fact that Foxwoods is on sovereign tribal land complicates everything. It means the lenders cannot foreclose and take control of the gambling operation but also that Foxwoods probably doesn’t qualify for Chapter 11 — a conundrum that Butera described as “sort of like being stuck in no man’s land” and one that financial backers of Indian casinos apparently did not foresee until Foxwoods tanked. “We have six layers of creditors and, within each layer, 20 to 40 institutions,” Butera told me.“It’s unbelievable. What you have to do is convince them that $2.3 billion of debt is not worth $2.3 billion. And it’s not. Our junior debt was trading at 5 cents on the dollar. So you want to come to a place where even though the lenders are getting a haircut on the face value, they know they’re getting an incredible lift on what it’s actually worth. That’s the magic.”
Butera’s interactions with the Pequots, his bosses, involve a different kind of magic — something more like family therapy. The tribe built new housing, a child-development center, ballfields and tennis courts, a spacious community building with a health club and an indoor-outdoor pool; just about everything on the reservation, which lies “across the swamp” from the casino, as tribal members put it, is faced in exquisitely crafted stone. The pièce de résistance was a $225 million museum to commemorate the Pequots’ tragic history and stunning resurrection.
The costliest regular expenditures were the annual dividends of at least $100,000 given to each adult member of the tribe. Cumulatively, they amounted to as much as $500 million over nearly two decades. They were called incentive payments, though for many they were actually disincentives to work. Children began getting the disbursements when they turned 18. Luxury automobiles abounded. The payments stopped just before Butera arrived in late 2010, and more Pequots have been going to work at Foxwoods. “You had this big moneymaking enterprise with a limited amount of mouths to feed,” Butera said. “But everything’s about austerity now. It’s no different than what a family would do. You’ve got to get rid of the cable TV. You’ve got to get rid of the Cadillac. You’re not going to go out to eat anymore.”
Butera and I set off on a walk around Foxwoods’s gambling floors and hotel and retail spaces, a tour he takes a couple of times a day. He was limping, though not as badly as before recent hip-replacement surgery. He had put off the operation as long as he could but decided that the leader of such a struggling venture should not look as if each step he takes may be his last. “Have you been up to the Paragon?” he asked me, referring to a rooftop restaurant and casino designed for high rollers. “We have like 15 kinds of Brazilian wood in there. It’s just insane.” He said he had seen plans for future improvements, all based on expectations that the money would never stop flowing. “Incredible, creative stuff,” he said. “Water parks. Monorails. Indoor skiing. It was going to be Disneyland under a glass roof.”
The glamour and sexiness of casinos can be highly overrated. Depending on your mood (and how much you’ve had to drink), Las Vegas can be alluring, weirdly fascinating or just disgusting. Foxwoods, under any circumstances, is not really sexy. It’s New England. The furniture in the hotel rooms is big and overstuffed and makes you think about curling up and reading a book. (A renovation to modernize them is under way.) Some of the retail space in the vast corridors between its four large casinos is meant to look like a flea market. In one of these hallways, a brick facade has a sign that says “Town Hall” and is meant to evoke . . . well, it’s not clear. Perhaps a polling place for the New Hampshire primary.
Foxwoods planned to close at 2 a.m. after its grand opening on Feb. 15, 1992, but hundreds of gamblers remained inside, so the lights stayed on, the dealers kept dealing and ever since — through hurricanes, blizzards and national crises — it has remained open every minute of every day. The region was starved for gambling. Located halfway between New York City and Boston, Foxwoods expanded as quickly as it could build, adding casino space and hotel rooms with little regard for cost or coherence.
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In 2006, the tribe began construction on a new tower, the MGM Grand at Foxwoods. The project is what finally sent Foxwoods into a financial tailspin. By the time it opened in 2008 — with 800 hotel rooms, 1,400 slot machines and a 4,000-seat theater — the recession had hit and was deepening. “I can understand the mind-set at the time that behemoth was coming out of the ground,” Rodney Butler, who was elected chairman of the Pequot tribe in 2009, said when I visited his office. “The human spirit wants to believe that everyone is entrepreneurial. And it’s fun to do, right? You figure you had one great success, you can have more. That’s the American way.”
It was not just entrepreneurial zeal that caused the Pequots to overreach. “Every consultant, every analyst and every banker on the planet encouraged us to keep getting bigger,” Butler said. “If it wasn’t for that, I’d say, Jeez, maybe we’re just idiots. But these were smart people. Then we opened the doors at the MGM Grand, and five months later, Lehman crashes and the world falls apart.”
Some people erroneously address Butler as Chief, a ceremonial and spiritual position that the Pequots have not filled for decades. If you didn’t know his background, you might assume he is a light-skinned African-American. The 11 family lines include strains of many other ethnicities, and most Pequots are a mix of several. Some just look white. (In “Hitting the Jackpot,” published in 2003, Brett D. Fromson documents a history of racial tension in the tribe that deepened with the building of Foxwoods and the money it produced.) Butler, 35, played football at the University of Connecticut, earned a degree in finance and serves on the board of the local United Way. He is analytical and low-key, a contrast to Skip Hayward, the tribal leader who cut the deals that built Foxwoods in a joint called Mr. Pizza and held court late into the night at local bars.
I told Butler that I found the Pequot Museum impressive. “You don’t think it’s a little over the top?” he said. Well, yes, but the exhibits make clear, in a way a casino never could, that the Pequots were a significant people whose reach once extended across much of southern New England. In the raid that nearly wiped out the Pequots, the Mohegans were among the colonists’ primary allies. “And now we’ve got dueling casinos,” Butler said. “This year will be the 375th anniversary of the year they rallied against us with the colonists. There’s still some bad blood over that, a little animosity, but mostly, we recognize them as our cousins, and we work well together.”
The Pequots, even with their substantial political clout in Connecticut, may not have been able to keep the Mohegans out of the casino market. But they never really mobilized against them. “They thought the cluster of casinos would bring more business,” Butera told me. “It didn’t work out that way. Would we be better off if Mohegan wasn’t here? Yeah, but they’re not going away.”
The Mohegan Sun enjoys several advantages, starting with its location. It is just off an exit on I-395, while Foxwoods is a 20-minute ride down a winding two-lane road. Mohegan has a younger clientele and a hipper vibe. When you enter its main hotel lobby, you notice right away that the lighting is better and the music more current. The idea behind Foxwoods’s new MGM Grand Tower was to add an element of glitz and to create an ambience — right down to the revealing outfits of the servers in the casino — that might attract some of Mohegan’s younger patrons.
Mohegan is smaller, but in recent years it has generated more revenue. The Mohegans own a second casino, in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania, and are expected to compete for a license in Massachusetts. (Foxwoods won a license to build a casino in Philadelphia, but its financial problems prompted the state’s gaming control board to revoke it in 2010.) The Mohegan Sun has struggled recently, too, and the tribe is seeking to restructure its debt, but the casino’s problems are not considered as deep, and its management has been more stable and nimble. Speaking to a gathering of financial analysts in 2009, Mitchell Etess, the Mohegan Sun’s C.E.O., said, “We’ve been very cautious, especially lately, to make sure everybody realizes we’re not Foxwoods.”
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Casinos came to Nevada in 1931 and were not legalized anywhere else in the U.S. for nearly five decades, an indication of how many Americans regarded gambling as squarely within the realm of vice and sin. In 1978, casinos opened in a second location, Atlantic City. It is not coincidental that the seaside resort was already a fallen place, poor and crime-ridden and hanging on to its one unique attraction, the annual Miss America Pageant.
You can still hear echoes of a time when gambling was widely considered wicked. When Rodney Butler raised the prospect of dropping the gambling age in Connecticut from 21 to 18 and allowing liquor sales until 4 a.m., The Hartford Courant’s editorial page objected, writing, “Why not just open a brothel?”
Resistance to gambling, however, has been overwhelmed by the need for new sources of public revenue in an era when it has become nearly impossible, at any level of government, to raise taxes or even to let temporary tax cuts expire. A kind of self-perpetuating momentum fuels gambling’s growth: the more states that legalize it, the more politicians in states that haven’t done so argue that if their citizens are going to throw money into slot machines, they might as well do it at home. “Those people would lose that money anyway,” Ed Rendell, the voluble former governor of Pennsylvania, said in a tense appearance on “60 Minutes” last year. Teeth clenched, he continued, “You’re simpletons, you’re idiots if you don’t get that.”
Butera reacts to the debates over gambling with a sense of amusement. “Few governors or senators or House members want to say, ‘I absolutely love having casinos in my market,’ ” he said. “It’s more like: ‘We can manage this. And here’s what we’ll do. We’ll put it in the right place, it won’t impact our society too much and we’ll make some money.’ ”
Casino gambling exists in 36 states. Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in 1988, and around 450 Indian casinos now dot the American landscape. Some are no more than trailers on barren, remote land, but several are large resort casinos near major population centers.
Connecticut’s agreement, or compact, with the Pequots permits various table games at Foxwoods, including blackjack, poker and roulette, along with lesser-known games of chance like chuck-a-luck, pan game, money-wheels and bouncing ball. The main action at Foxwoods and everywhere in the U.S. casino market, though, is slots, which in most casinos account for at least 70 percent of gambling revenues. Foxwoods agreed to pay the state 25 percent of the “hold” from slot machines — the money that gamblers put in and is not returned to them in winnings. While casino opponents in Connecticut have attributed increased traffic, crime and gambling addiction to Foxwoods and Mohegan, those problems would have to be breathtakingly deep and costly to equal the dollars that have flowed to the state.
In January, Mohegan’s hold from its slots was $52 million; Foxwoods’s was $46 million. Connecticut’s share from both came to $24.8 million. Over the last two decades, the monthly payments have added about $6 billion to the state treasury. About half of that is estimated to have come from out-of-state residents, the majority of them from Massachusetts and New York. “Some states weren’t paying attention — they just thought Indian casinos were going to be big bingo halls,” Clyde W. Barrow, director of the Center for Policy Analysis at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and an expert on the New England casino market, told me. “Connecticut was ahead of the game. They understood the potential.”
Non-Indian gambling operations, known as commercial casinos, have multiplied in every region of the country: from the stolid Midwest, where Iowa alone has 17 commercial casinos, to Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, which has become a mini-Las Vegas, to the mid-Atlantic region, the latest boom market. A proposed $1 billion casino in Maryland has attracted powerful business and political support. It would be on the banks of the Potomac, about 10 miles south of the White House.
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Most people probably would not guess which state reaps the most revenue from its casinos. It is Pennsylvania, which in 2010 collected $1.3 billion from slots and table-game revenues. The state had just 10 casinos, but Rendell negotiated an agreement that requires them to turn over 55 percent of the hold from their slots to the state — an advantageous deal for the public and one that showed other states what casino owners will tolerate to gain entry into a market. “It is considered a privilege to be in this industry, and we pay for that privilege in very high taxes,” Frank Fahrenkopf, the president of the American Gaming Association, told me when I visited his office in Washington.
The silver-haired Fahrenkopf, a chairman of the Republican National Committee in the Reagan years, is known as an adroit Washington player, the type who can make light of his high status while also fully inhabiting it. He showed me what he called his “I love me” wall, pictures of him with other important people. “Everybody in Washington has to have one,” he said. “That’s me with Helmut and Margaret,” he said of one picture, signaling his first-name relationships with Helmut Kohl and Margaret Thatcher.
The A.G.A. represents only commercial casinos, 566 of them in 22 states. An economic impact study commissioned by the organization last year counted $34.6 billion in nationwide gambling revenues in 2010. That represents money that individuals bet, lost and left behind in casinos. According to the study, casinos supported 820,000 jobs, created $125 billion in spending and accounted for close to 1 percent of the U.S. gross-domestic product. (Those figures come from only commercial casinos. Foxwoods, Mohegan and other Indian casinos were not included.) “I know there are people who hate this industry and who are always going to hate this industry,” Fahrenkopf said. “If you look at polling, it’s a solid 15 percent, and the other 85 percent are O.K. with it. But you see the contribution we make, in terms of jobs, and the taxes we pay. We’re proud of that.”
The name of the organization Fahrenkopf leads, the American Gaming Association, drops the “b” and the “l” from “gambling.” In fact, no one in the casino business says “gambling.” They are in the business of “gaming” — an enterprise that could not exist without euphemisms and various legal workarounds. There are, for example, the so-called riverboat casinos that get around prohibitions against gambling on land; most of the boats never leave the shoreline. Some Midwest casinos are plopped down in shallow water in concrete basins and are known as “boats in a moat.”
The racino, a more recent innovation, is a slots parlor built at an existing horse-racing track — ground already touched and therefore tainted by gambling. In February, I took the A train from Midtown Manhattan to South Ozone Park in Queens, where a racino has been joined to the century-old Aqueduct racetrack. It is called the Resorts World Casino New York City and is owned by a subsidiary of the Genting Group, the corporation that financed the construction of Foxwoods. Even on a Monday afternoon, thousands of people — white, black, Asian and Hispanic, drawn from the great melting pot of Queens and nearby boroughs and suburbs — were playing the slot machines. Except technically they weren’t slots, but video lottery terminals, or V.L.T.’s.
What’s a V.L.T.? It’s a slot machine.
Under New York state law, however, slots are illegal. With a V.L.T., the result of each play is determined by a central computer and not by circuitry within the machine itself, as is the case with slot machines. That somehow makes it legal. Most gamblers wouldn’t notice a difference, and no one I talked to inside Aqueduct, not even people who worked there, had ever heard of a V.L.T.
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Governor Cuomo wants New York to change its state constitution to permit Las Vegas-style gambling with table games, live dealers and slot machines that can be called slot machines. His pitch is based on the prospect of gaining new revenues for the state — and overturning the hypocrisy of the current system. “In a perfect world, there would be no casinos,” he told the editorial board of The Syracuse Post-Standard in February. Referring to New York’s “hodgepodge” of Indian casinos and state-sanctioned racinos, he said: “We have 29,000 gambling machines in this state, more than Atlantic City. . . . You have gaming! You’re just in denial of the reality.”
A casino floor can seem like a throwback to a time decades ago when personal habits were judged less harshly and physical fitness was not considered such a virtue. “Sometimes, it’s a beautiful day out, and you think to yourself, Oh, God, nobody’s going to come in here,” Scott Butera told me in one of our conversations. “But they do. Our crowd wants to sit in front of a slot machine, smoke a cigarette and drink. They’re not going water skiing out at Mystic Seaport.”
A substantial number of casino patrons have mobility issues, and you see a lot of wheelchairs. People who work on casino floors take pride in getting to know their regular customers, the names of their children and grandchildren and even their health issues. “You look around here, and 45 is young,” Butera said as we walked between rows of slots at Foxwoods.
The slot machines themselves, in the cartoonish and often hilarious political incorrectness of their imagery, hark back to some other era — for example, crudely drawn geishas, Asian “emperors” and a “bandito” in a game called More Chilis that would embarrass the proprietor of the lowest-end Tex-Mex joint you can imagine. At the casino industry’s big annual convention in Las Vegas, which is in part a trade show for slots manufacturers, a machine called Girls Day Out included a leather purse and a purple cocktail dress among its spinning icons. The featured icons in its companion game, Guys Night, were things meant to get men excited: dancing girls, cigars, overstuffed hamburgers. The big new rollout at the show was a “Ghostbusters” slot machine, a homage to the 1984 movie. The game’s audio played a section of dialogue from the movie, which seemed like a sly insertion of the designers’ dark humor: “We’d like to get a sample of your brain tissue.”
Foxwoods does have table games, including blackjack and poker. Most casinos of any size court big players, those who will risk hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. High rollers are brought in by private jet and helicopter, installed in sumptuous suites with butler service and sometimes granted specially tailored rules on their game of choice. In some cases, casinos will even agree in advance to discount losses: if a player comes in with, say, a $1 million bankroll and loses it all, $200,000 will be returned.
The table games pose some risk for casinos. When I was at Foxwoods, the casino had just been “beaten,” as Butera put it, for close to $1 million by a blackjack player. “It happens,” he said.
Butera told me about another blackjack player who had recently beaten several Atlantic City casinos for more than $15 million. According to published reports, the player, a Pennsylvania businessman named Don Johnson, won $5.8 million at the Tropicana in just 12 hours. The word in the industry was that Johnson benefited from his own solid strategy, a run of great luck and rules that were tilted too much in his direction. He apparently was allowed to bet relatively small amounts when the deck was not in his favor, and up to $100,000 on a single hand when it was. (Also, under typical casino rules, if a blackjack player is dealt two aces, he can split those aces and play two hands, but if he gets another on the next deal, he can’t split again. Johnson was allowed to split aces a third and even a fourth time.)
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The lesson that Butera and others on his management team drew was that the Atlantic City casinos had negotiated away too much of their house advantage, something they said was common at Foxwoods under previous management teams. Butera told me that he has instructed those under him to “just say no and let a guy walk down the street and play somewhere else” rather than agree to rules that shave off too much of the casino’s advantage. We were on the gambling floor, and Butera was focused, as he often is, on his dealers. He wants them to be friendly and to “root for the player to win” but to keep the game brisk. “The more hands a player is dealt, the better it is for us,” he said. Butera, who has an M.B.A. from N.Y.U., invoked a gambling term — “vig,” short for “vigorish,” meaning the house’s cut of the action. “The math is the math,” he said. “Over time, we’ll make our vig.”
At the annual Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas last October, I listened as A. K. Singh, a mathematician and professor of gaming at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, advised a roomful of casino executives that they could probably increase the hold on their slot machines by a percentage point or two without losing business. He said that some academic literature suggested that skilled slots players would notice, but he disagreed. “What is a skilled player?” he said with a laugh. “There is no skill.”
The difference between table games and slot machines is that slots are entirely predictable. They’re like A.T.M.’s, but in reverse — programmed to take money from players, usually about 9 cents of every dollar wagered, while producing frequent near misses, the illusion that a big jackpot was at hand if only, say, just one more overstuffed burger had landed on the pay line. The lower the house’s hold on a slot machine — and the higher the number of small payouts — the longer a player’s T.O.D. (time on device). It’s a fine balance. Casinos want customers to lose their money, but not so rapidly that they’ll feel the whole experience was a bummer and not want to return.
The gaming confab, known as G2E, offers a sort of crash course in the state of the industry. “We have the power to control luck,” Michael Meczka, a veteran casino marketing consultant from Los Angeles, said at another session. But much of the rest of his presentation was about the uncertainty gripping the business, what casinos cannot control. His remarks, in fact, were a bit grim — they reminded me of the despair you hear in the newspaper business over the advanced age of the core customers and the fear that younger people do not like the product enough to replace them.
Millions of younger Americans who like to gamble are playing online poker, hosted on offshore sites. They may never become casino habitués. So at the same time that brick-and-mortar casinos are proliferating, the demographics may be working against the industry. The A.G.A. is lobbying for legalization of online poker in the United States and for strict regulation of it — a rare case of an industry’s seeking regulation. The strategy would likely put those who already own casinos in a favored position in the new online world.
The big buzzword in the business right now is “cannibalization.” It refers, in this context, to casinos’ gobbling up one anothers’ customers, which for some of them may be the only route to survival. Fahrenkopf, the A.G.A. president, said he was not worried. “What about Starbucks?” he said as I sat in his Washington office. “A block east of here, a block west, a block north is a Starbucks. How much is too much? The market will decide.”
Las Vegas, still the anchor of the gambling industry in the U.S., was battered by the recession, and its revenues from gambling still lag far behind 2007 levels. The city’s recovery could be hurt by a building boom in big Indian casinos in California — and, over time, by new properties in New York, Massachusetts and other Northeast states. The biggest winner in Las Vegas in recent years has been Sheldon Adelson, chairman of the company that owns the Venetian, but what has made him one of the wealthiest men in the world is not his U.S. holdings but his ownership of hugely profitable casinos in the Chinese territory of Macao. (Adelson has been in the news recently because he and his wife have contributed more than $10 million to support Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign.)
(Page 8 of 9)
Farhrenkopf acknowledged that when the market does decide, it can have adverse consequences — in Atlantic City, for example, where casino revenue is down 37 percent since 2006 and the city’s future as a gambling mecca is very much in doubt. Rooms at hotel casinos have been going for as little as $19 a night. At least four casinos have been in bankruptcy, and people are no longer crowding onto buses to head south down the Atlantic City Expressway. “The Pennsylvania casinos are killing Atlantic City,” he said. “That’s where the Philadelphia market used to go, but now they can stay home.”
It’s that specter — once-loyal players who disappear — that Foxwoods must worry about. At the Las Vegas conference, Meczka said that when people in the industry tell him they want new customers, his response is: “There aren’t any new customers out there. Gaming is an aged community. . . . Anyone who has ever wanted to try a casino has tried a casino.” In other words, the market is not expanding — only the venues meant to cater to a finite number of gamblers.
When I toured Foxwoods with Christopher O’Connell, the vice president for hotel operations, we looked at some of the back-room operations: a call center, where about 130 people, divided among three shifts, book reservations and answer other inquiries; a corridor with a long line of lockers, where dealers store their personal belongings; cafeterias that serve about 5,000 meals a day to employees. In better economic times, these might seem like lower-level service-industry jobs. In the current climate, they just looked like jobs.
O’Connell grew up in Ledyard, Conn., and was a basketball star at Ledyard High. “There was no reason to ever go to this side of town,” he told me. “It was a swamp, that’s all, and a reservation, but there was hardly anything on the reservation.” He has worked there for most of his adult life. “I’m interested to see what happens with Aqueduct,” he said. “They don’t have table games yet, but everyone figures they will. With Massachusetts, it’s only a matter of time before they get casinos. It’s scary from my perspective.”
When Butera showed me around the property, it was clear that much about it irritates him. The restaurant choices, for starters. “You want a steak, we’ll give you a steak,” he said. “You want a doughnut, you can have that. We just don’t have much in between. We need a Yard House, an Applebee’s, a T. G. I. Friday’s, a Cheesecake Factory.” He noted the absence of a seafood restaurant. “We’re in New England, and we don’t have a fish house?” We walked by some of the flea-market-like retail. “All this honky-tonk has to go,” he said.
What encourages Butera is the immensity of the property and the richness of what has already been built. “I mean, you look at this place, the money that’s in the ground, nobody could afford to do that now. But the good news is it’s already here. We’ve got it. The business needs to evolve, but the foundation that exists is unbelievable.”
A successful turnaround artist does more than negotiate favorable terms with lenders. He must tell a story. He elucidates what went wrong in the past and how it will be better in the future. It can help to be blunt about previous management, even harsh — like a defense lawyer pleading for a new trial for his client on the basis that the previous attorney was incompetent. Butera brought in an almost entirely new management team, including people he knew from Las Vegas and Atlantic City. It wasn’t easy to attract them, because everyone had to relocate — and to an entity perceived as failing. “There was poor management here for an extended period of time,” Butera told me. “So we needed to make a lot of changes.”
(Page 9 of 9)
Revenues have continued to fall at Foxwoods, as they have for the last half-dozen years. But lately, the casino’s profits have been increasing. “We changed our focus to profitability,” Butera said, which sounds a little like something out of a story in The Onion. (The previous focus was on unprofitability?) But what he meant was that Foxwoods had stopped chasing unproductive customers — table-game players whose perks added up to more than their losses — just to increase traffic.
On Feb. 15, the 20th anniversary of casino gambling at Foxwoods, Butera and Rodney Butler, chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, proposed a broader plan for how the business would go forward. In one way, it was a return to the past. Foxwoods will expand. But this time, in a different way. It will not be adding gambling capacity. Instead, the plan is to build a 300,000-square-foot retail center, including 75 outlet stores, between the new MGM Grand Tower and the rest of Foxwoods. The area is currently dead space, a long walk for a lot of people who don’t enjoy walking.
Luxury outlet malls are considered a good mix with casinos, because the core customer is the same as a typical slots player: a middle-aged woman with money to spend. “It’s going to be a fabulous tenant roster,” Butera said. “If you’re a retailer, what’s your biggest concern? You’re going to open the store, and nobody’s going to come. We’ve got 40,000 people here every Saturday wanting to do something and not wanting to go anywhere else. They’re captive.”
But of course, nothing is really as profitable as the casino end of a resort casino. No goods or services, in a traditional sense, are exchanged. People come through the door for the experience of risking — and usually losing — their money. Gambling, like professional sports, is entertainment — but without the multimillion-dollar salaries for the performers. And no pro sports franchise generates cash hour by hour, day after day, like a big thriving casino.
By the beginning of this year, Butera and the tribe were close to an agreement with their lenders, though the details will still take months to finalize. The $2.3 billion debt is expected to be reduced to about $1.7 billion, but with lower interest rates that will ensure financial flexibility for Foxwoods.
The plan for the outlet mall was a signal to lenders that two decades of grandiosity at Foxwoods have come to an end. Foxwoods had been an early mover, built to stand astride a huge geographic area — much like the Pequot tribe once dominated a big swath of New England. But as the casino business in America has expanded, Foxwoods’s piece of it has become smaller and will continue to shrink.
“You can’t fight the tide,” Butera said as we sat in his office. He brought up the example of Atlantic City. The State of New Jersey is likely to reap less money from its tables and slots — just as Connecticut and other states that have come to rely on gambling will see their share decrease as others get into the market. But he believes individual casinos with a good plan can survive. “It’s the exact same thing here,” Butera said. “We can still have a great business. We just can’t have the same business we used to have.”
Michael Sokolove is a contributing writer for the magazine.
Editor: Dean Robinson
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Kraft/Wynn Slot Barn would be detrimental to area housing market
Casino would be detrimental to area housing market
To the editor: I'm a Foxboro resident and owner of a real estate brokerage for the last 23 years. I'm against the casino in Foxboro for several reasons.
* A casino is controversial.
* Anything controversial will cause some home buyers to exclude Foxboro and surrounding towns. This potential reduction in buyers will negatively affect the price and resale of homes here.
* There will most likely be an increase in crime, drunk driving and other problems that don't necessarily come from other types of commercial developments such as a malls, restaurants, etc.
* The majority of jobs created by a casino are not high paying. In contrast, jobs created through skilled manufacturing, high tech, research, medical, education and finance would be more beneficial to Foxboro and area communities. Whether the casino is built in Foxboro or Boston, those same jobs the casino lobby is promoting will be available for applicants.
* A casino will change the demographics and feel of the town. The casino developer is setting aside funds to deal with the increased need in law enforcement the casino will bring. Many families moved to Foxboro because of the community feel. Any significant change in crime, drug abuse, alcohol abuse and, domestic violence, or any other demographics will change the feel and fabric of Foxboro and surrounding towns.
Three casinos will be built in Massachusetts, all within a drive convenient to Foxboro residents who want to use it or work there; it doesn't need to be in Foxboro for this to happen.
With objection from of town officials and residents in significant numbers, Steve Wynn and Robert Kraft have resorted to employment of people from outside of town to try to sell the proposal to residents. They are funding promotions trying to make the casino just about jobs. This argument falls short because Foxboro has relatively high employment. All the casino jobs will be available to qualified candidates no matter where the casino is built. The "Jobs for Foxboro" argument just doesn't hold water.
Bob Simone, Foxboro
To the editor: I'm a Foxboro resident and owner of a real estate brokerage for the last 23 years. I'm against the casino in Foxboro for several reasons.
* A casino is controversial.
* Anything controversial will cause some home buyers to exclude Foxboro and surrounding towns. This potential reduction in buyers will negatively affect the price and resale of homes here.
* There will most likely be an increase in crime, drunk driving and other problems that don't necessarily come from other types of commercial developments such as a malls, restaurants, etc.
* The majority of jobs created by a casino are not high paying. In contrast, jobs created through skilled manufacturing, high tech, research, medical, education and finance would be more beneficial to Foxboro and area communities. Whether the casino is built in Foxboro or Boston, those same jobs the casino lobby is promoting will be available for applicants.
* A casino will change the demographics and feel of the town. The casino developer is setting aside funds to deal with the increased need in law enforcement the casino will bring. Many families moved to Foxboro because of the community feel. Any significant change in crime, drug abuse, alcohol abuse and, domestic violence, or any other demographics will change the feel and fabric of Foxboro and surrounding towns.
Three casinos will be built in Massachusetts, all within a drive convenient to Foxboro residents who want to use it or work there; it doesn't need to be in Foxboro for this to happen.
With objection from of town officials and residents in significant numbers, Steve Wynn and Robert Kraft have resorted to employment of people from outside of town to try to sell the proposal to residents. They are funding promotions trying to make the casino just about jobs. This argument falls short because Foxboro has relatively high employment. All the casino jobs will be available to qualified candidates no matter where the casino is built. The "Jobs for Foxboro" argument just doesn't hold water.
Bob Simone, Foxboro
Rio Casino [Caesars] shooting injures 5
Caesars unable to ensure your safety --
5 hurt in shootings outside Vegas casino, hospital
KEN RITTER
The Associated Press
LAS VEGAS - Police fired shots in the parking structure of a Las Vegas resort casino as they interrupted a gang-related gunbattle just hours before the marquee event of a NASCAR race weekend that brought hundreds of thousands of tourists to town, authorities said Monday.
Three people were wounded in the gunfire as others dove for cover shortly before 4 a.m. Sunday on the fourth floor of the Rio All Suites Hotel & Casino parking structure, police said.
One wounded man disappeared while two were taken to University Medical Center, where gunfire in the parking lot about 90 minutes later wounded two more men. Police believe the two shootings are related.
The man who initially disappeared arrived at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center across town at about 6 a.m., and he was being treated for multiple gunshot wounds.
Police said it was lucky no one was killed and no bystanders were hurt as parked cars were peppered with bullets in the Rio's broad cement parking garage.
"There were a number of innocent people that were up there just getting in their cars, that just arrived or leaving the area," Deputy Las Vegas Police Chief Jim Owens told reporters at a news conference Monday. But there were no uninvolved people who were struck by stray gunfire, he said.
Uniformed officers were in the area, working overtime for special weekend events, and they arrived just seconds after reports of gunfire in the parking structure, which is several blocks west of the Las Vegas Strip, Owens said.
The officers fanned out after finding blood on the ground and a metal baseball bat in a trash barrel. One officer shot several times at a man he saw firing a weapon and running toward him. The gunman, a 22-year-old North Las Vegas man, was wounded. Police said it wasn't clear if the officer was the person who shot him.
No police officers were injured.
Officer Jacinto Rivera, a department spokesman, said detectives were checking casino and parking lot surveillance video and seeking witnesses to an earlier dispute outside the Crown Nightclub, which is at the Rio. Police think that altercation may have led to the shooting.
"The individuals who were involved were gang members," Rivera said. "We don't know the motivation."
The shooting at University Medical Center happened after a crowd of more than 30 people gathered in a parking lot to support the two who were being treated inside. Witnesses saw three people standing a short distance from the crowd before shots were fired, Owens said. The shooters fled, and police later found a handgun at the scene.
Rivera and Owens said all five of the wounded men were expected to survive their injuries.
The officer who fired shots was on paid leave pending a review of the shooting. Police were withholding his name for 48 hours.
The shooting and the investigation forced the closure of the Rio parking structure until midday and disrupted plans for hundreds of people in town for NASCAR events, including Sunday's featured Sprint Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Rio's parent company, Caesars Entertainment Corp., delayed checkout times, provided breakfast vouchers and offered shuttle service to the track and other Strip properties while police collected evidence, company spokesman Gary Thompson said.
Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/nation/20120312_ap_5hurtinshootingsoutsidevegascasinohospital.html?c=r#ixzz1p166Nkjb
5 hurt in shootings outside Vegas casino, hospital
KEN RITTER
The Associated Press
LAS VEGAS - Police fired shots in the parking structure of a Las Vegas resort casino as they interrupted a gang-related gunbattle just hours before the marquee event of a NASCAR race weekend that brought hundreds of thousands of tourists to town, authorities said Monday.
Three people were wounded in the gunfire as others dove for cover shortly before 4 a.m. Sunday on the fourth floor of the Rio All Suites Hotel & Casino parking structure, police said.
One wounded man disappeared while two were taken to University Medical Center, where gunfire in the parking lot about 90 minutes later wounded two more men. Police believe the two shootings are related.
The man who initially disappeared arrived at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center across town at about 6 a.m., and he was being treated for multiple gunshot wounds.
Police said it was lucky no one was killed and no bystanders were hurt as parked cars were peppered with bullets in the Rio's broad cement parking garage.
"There were a number of innocent people that were up there just getting in their cars, that just arrived or leaving the area," Deputy Las Vegas Police Chief Jim Owens told reporters at a news conference Monday. But there were no uninvolved people who were struck by stray gunfire, he said.
Uniformed officers were in the area, working overtime for special weekend events, and they arrived just seconds after reports of gunfire in the parking structure, which is several blocks west of the Las Vegas Strip, Owens said.
The officers fanned out after finding blood on the ground and a metal baseball bat in a trash barrel. One officer shot several times at a man he saw firing a weapon and running toward him. The gunman, a 22-year-old North Las Vegas man, was wounded. Police said it wasn't clear if the officer was the person who shot him.
No police officers were injured.
Officer Jacinto Rivera, a department spokesman, said detectives were checking casino and parking lot surveillance video and seeking witnesses to an earlier dispute outside the Crown Nightclub, which is at the Rio. Police think that altercation may have led to the shooting.
"The individuals who were involved were gang members," Rivera said. "We don't know the motivation."
The shooting at University Medical Center happened after a crowd of more than 30 people gathered in a parking lot to support the two who were being treated inside. Witnesses saw three people standing a short distance from the crowd before shots were fired, Owens said. The shooters fled, and police later found a handgun at the scene.
Rivera and Owens said all five of the wounded men were expected to survive their injuries.
The officer who fired shots was on paid leave pending a review of the shooting. Police were withholding his name for 48 hours.
The shooting and the investigation forced the closure of the Rio parking structure until midday and disrupted plans for hundreds of people in town for NASCAR events, including Sunday's featured Sprint Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Rio's parent company, Caesars Entertainment Corp., delayed checkout times, provided breakfast vouchers and offered shuttle service to the track and other Strip properties while police collected evidence, company spokesman Gary Thompson said.
Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/nation/20120312_ap_5hurtinshootingsoutsidevegascasinohospital.html?c=r#ixzz1p166Nkjb
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