Perhaps realizing that the previous version of its lawsuit against Massachusetts Gaming Commission Chairman Stephen Crosby was a dog that wouldn’t hunt, Caesars Entertainment has reloaded with an amended complaint. Now it says that Crosby urged Steve Wynn, when the latter bridled at the Massachusetts regulatory process, to stay in the game. The presumed motive is that a former Crosby business partner stood to benefit from the sale of land in Everett to Wynn. The source for this info? Wynn himself, (or was it?) who can afford to be magnanimous to Caesars now that it’s out of the race and out of Massachusetts.
After fallaciously claiming that Spectrum Gaming Group had recommended Caesars for licensure, the company has modified its stance. In a 
syntactical nightmare, it claims that Spectrum Managing Director Frederic Gushin, “in language that [Vice President of Governmental Relations David] Satz recognized when Spectrum was advising a favorable recommendation, assured Satz that Spectrum had already advised the Bureau that Spectrum had found no reason to conclude that plaintiffs were unsuitable. Based upon Gushin’s statements in the conversation, Satz concluded that Spectrum’s investigation and report to the bureau were complete, and that Gushin believed that the bureau would issue a recommendation of suitability with conditions as to plaintiffs.”
There’s a big difference between what Satz inferred and what Gushin reported, and this may be a classic case of what happens when we assume. Anyway, Gary Loveman is the enfant gate of the casino industry and I suspect we can look forward to a string of colicky outbursts on the subject of Massachusetts.
P.S.: Reached by the Boston Globe, Wynn pushed Loveman under the bus without compunction: “This lawsuit and the misrepresentations included within it are a shameless, desperate attempt by Caesars to deflect attention from the serious issues raised in their investigation.”
$1.5 billion. That’s the amount of casino tax that Florida has booked since making compacts with the Seminole Tribe in 2010. It’s also what the state is pushing onto the green felt as it romances Big Gaming this year. The compact expires in 2015, meaning that Florida would take a heavy hit while it waits for resort casinos to come online. The issue has particular sensitivity, given that Florida is ranked as the most corrupt state in the country, but casino expansion could be on the ballots within the year.
Kudos to Cordish Gaming for coming to the rescue of employees of the the soon-to-be-ex Atlantic Club Hotel, which Caesars is closing. Cordish is holding a job fair for them, needs 100 workers for a start and expects to require more later.
If I were Loveman, I would retaliate by dumping Wynn from New Joisey. See if Wynn would dare to have his background scrutinized thoroughly, especially concerning what Scotland Yard found out about his “associations” as reported by John Smith in his book “Running Scared”.