MGM back into Atlantic City?

MGM Resorts International has a 50% stake in Borgata that nobody wants … except MGM. In bolstering move that Atlantic City sorely needs, MGM may get to reclaim its half of the resort (with the support of partner Boyd Gaming), not to mention all the revenue that the State of New Jersey has been holding in trust, pending a sale, since it kicked MGM out three years ago. Garden State regulators had found that — surprise! — Stanley Ho was mobbed up and deemed that daughter Pansy Ho had acted as a conduit for some of Papa Ho’s money to flow into MGM Grand Paradise in Macao. Now, if I give you 40 bucks and you give it to MGM, is it still my money or yours?

Upon such questions, the fate of MGM hung. (Elaborate Macanese subterfuge conducted at the behest of then-CEO J. Terrence Lanni didn’t help MGM’s case.) However, Pansy Ho (right) now holds but a minority position — 27% — in MGM’s Chinese operations and all the “bad actors” in the company have either been sacked, resigned or deceased. Due to these factors, S&G has long held that there’s a plausible case for reversing the 2010 verdict. Certainly if a company as sketchy as PokerStars — which recently agreed to pay the Department of Justice the tidy sum of 731 million clams — can be licensed in New Jersey, the far-cleaner MGM should be forgiven, and swiftly. The Division of Gaming Enforcement may be acting more out of expediency than ethical remorse but that doesn’t mean it isn’t doing the right thing, whatever its motive.

A reversal of the 2010 edict would also ease the path for MGM in states like Maryland and Massachusetts, where the blotch on the company’s escutcheon posed an obstacle, perhaps a serious one. (I’d be more concerned about MGM’s $13 billion debt burden, but that’s just me.) The timing could hardly be better, as MGM’s Springfield proposal inched forward this week, as the City Council passed the buck to Mayor Dominic Sarno on whether to negotiate with MGM or Penn National Gaming … or perhaps both. However, Sarno will probably take the council’s advice and punt the tough decision to voters in a citywide referendum. If Springfield city fathers have qualms about MGM’s Pansy Ho dalliance, they’ve also raised concerns about equine mistreatment at Penn-owned racetracks. So both companies will have a little ‘splainin’ to do in order to satisfy Springfield.