{"id":10474,"date":"2013-02-08T13:03:11","date_gmt":"2013-02-08T21:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=10474"},"modified":"2023-01-05T08:30:18","modified_gmt":"2023-01-05T16:30:18","slug":"mgm-back-into-atlantic-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/mgm-back-into-atlantic-city\/","title":{"rendered":"MGM back into Atlantic City?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

\"\"Upon such questions, the fate of MGM hung. (Elaborate Macanese subterfuge conducted at the behest of then-CEO J. Terrence Lanni<\/strong> didn’t help MGM’s case.) However, Pansy Ho (right<\/em>) 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<\/em> has long held that there’s a plausible case for reversing the 2010 verdict. Certainly if a company as sketchy as PokerStars<\/strong> — which recently agreed to pay the Department of Justice<\/strong> the tidy sum of 731 million clams — can be licensed in New Jersey<\/a>, the far-cleaner MGM should be forgiven, and swiftly. The Division of Gaming Enforcement<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n

A reversal of the 2010 edict would also ease the path for MGM in states like Maryland<\/strong> and Massachusetts<\/strong>, 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<\/strong> proposal inched forward this week, as the City Council passed the buck to Mayor Dominic Sarno<\/strong> on whether to negotiate with MGM or Penn National Gaming<\/strong> … 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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), … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,60,28,14,26,67,37,62,72,112,11,69,25,61,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10474"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10474"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32148,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10474\/revisions\/32148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}