Even as Steve Wynn was on his way out at Wynn Resorts, the casino he bested for the Boston-area gaming concession, Mohegan Sun, was launching a legal counterattack. It demanded that Wynn Resorts’ license be pulled and the project awarded to Mohegan Sun. That would certainly solve 
one worry: Who’d take on the $2.4 billion project if Wynn Resorts is deemed unsuitable to operate in Massachusetts? A Mohegan legal brief argued that “the deck was stacked from the start. The entire licensing proceeding was infected with bias toward Wynn, thus the Court must vacate the entire process, and order MGC to begin the process anew.” Replied the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, “That the commission’s licensing decisions were somehow ‘shot through with bias’ towards Wynn is pure fiction.” Local alarmists are arguing in favor of keeping Wynn in place, contending that the $2.4 billion Wynn Boston Harbor could stand empty for as much as 10 years.
In Macao, the company is in much better shape vis-a-vis licensing, as Steve Wynn holds no ownership stake in Wynn Macau, a small but salient point. As one gaming analyst told Nikkei Asian Review, “It would be ridiculous for the Macau government to take away the license because of the conduct of one individual.” Were it not for the concealment of Steve Wynn’s payment of $7.5 million in hush money to a manicurist over a paternity claim, his eponymous company might not even be in trouble in Massachusetts. As it stands, it has a lot of questions to answer.
* Ohio will have to look to its right flank now that Mount Airy Casino has snared a mini-casino license in Pennsylvania‘s western Lawrence County. It will pose a competitive threat to Hollywood Casino Mahoning Valley, which is ineligible for table games. The magic number for Mount Airy was $21,888,888 — much less than Penn National Gaming and Stadium Casino paid for their minis but still 
well more than the minimum $7.5 million. (The commonwealth is making out like a bandit on these auctions.) Parx Casino and Sands Bethlehem also bid but came up short.
Mount Airy’s interest is music to the ears of Lawrence, which has been seeking a casino since 2004, back when a racino was mooted for the area, bounced from owner to owner and was ultimately nixed by regulators. Spectrum Gaming Group‘s Joseph Weinert, noting the geyser of funds stemming from the licensed auctions, predicted that “this mini-casino scheme that Pennsylvania has implemented, rather quickly I might say, is going to be imitated in other states in the foreseeable future.”
* Rest assured, there is justice in this world.
