university of north dakota discrimination

For $200 million, you could be casino king

Ralph Engelstad, who is hovering around the milestone of 70 years and looking to retire from a long career in casino gambling, is still looking for a buyer for the high-rise, 1,100-room Imperial Palace hotel-casino he built three years ago on Biloxi's Back Bay.
The asking price: $200 million. Cash.
"That's what we put into it," Engelstad said last week from his Las Vegas office, where he owns a 2,700-room version of the Asian-theme hotel on the Strip.
He declined to discuss what interest has been expressed in the Biloxi resort.
Engelstad, who Forbes magazine once said was worth more than $425 million, is liquidating his assets in anticipation of retirement to his house in the Cayman Islands.
He's been selling several office buildings and warehouses. The properties are "pretty much" gone, he said, with the exception of "a couple of warehouses."

A secret no more

Casino executives are hoping state officials, and particularly Mississippi legislators, will recognize the role played by the gambling industry in Nissan Motor Co.'s decision to build a $950 million assembly plant in Canton.
About $1.54 billion in gambling revenues has been paid to the state's general fund and local governments, where much of it has been spent on education and infrastructure, wrote the Wall Street Journal.
"Those improvements have eased the misgivings that companies may have once harbored about the state," Buzz Canup, an Atlanta site selection consultant, told the Journal.
The Mississippi Gaming Association, the casino trade group and lobby, is hoping the Journal article and Canup's remarks help dissuade any thoughts that lawmakers have to increase gambling taxes in the upcoming session.
"We are convinced that a large part of the infrastructure development and recent economic growth in the state is directly related to the success of the state's tourism and gaming industries," said Andrew Bourland, the association's executive director.
"Mississippi may have been one of the best kept secrets nationally when it came to business opportunities, but more companies will no doubt take notice of Mississippi when they make decisions about new development in the future."

Election a mixed bag

With Texas Gov. George W. Bush holding a tenuous lead over Vice President Al Gore in the nation's never-ending presidential election, the casino industry is not anticipating a significant change in the White House's attitude toward commercial gambling.
''We don't see a significant difference in who holds the office of the president, although Vice President Gore has certainly been more vocally and visibly supportive of the industry," said Jan Jones, vice president of government relations for Harrah's Entertainment. "By that I mean in having an open mind to our issues. Gov. Bush has made it clear that he sees it as a state's rights issue.''
But a lobbyist for the American Indian casino industry is concerned about the impact a Bush victory would have on tribal government gambling.
Bush has largely backed off ill-informed remarks on tribal government sovereignty that generated opposition to his campaign in Indian country. The candidate said states should have control over tribal government casinos on federal reservations.
But tribal leaders are still concerned about Bush's record on poverty in his home state of Texas.
"When you look at his record on poverty, and not just the words, it gives us pause," said Tom Rodgers, a Washington, D.C., lobbyist for the National Indian Gaming Association.
Tribal leaders are also concerned about Bush appointees to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the industry's regulatory agency, the National Indian Gaming Commission. They also are keeping a close eye on as-yet-undecided gubernatorial and legislative races in those states where tribes have not been able to negotiate agreements needed to expand bingo halls into Las Vegas-style casinos.
The commercial casino industry lost a strong ally in Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., who retired from office. But it gained support with the election of Bryan's replacement, Republican John Ensign, son of Mike Ensign, chairman of Mandalay Bay Resorts. Ensign will give the industry needed support on the Republican side of the aisle.
"The way everything is shaking out, I think gaming is better off today than it was yesterday," Andy Abboud, director of government relations for the Venetian resort, told the Las Vegas Sun. "The overall message should be, everything's O.K."

'Victory against slavery'

Tom Grey, executive director of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, calls the Nov. 7 gambling-related votes a "victory against slavery.'
"We won five battles and lost five battles, but the war is not over," Grey said. "Now, we are fighting for freedom against the enslavement of individuals who become addicted to gambling, and against state governments which become addicted to the tax revenues that gambling promise."
Voters in Arkansas, Maine, New Mexico and West Virginia defeated proposals to legalize casinos and slot machines at race tracks.
South Dakota residents rejected a ban on video lotteries and raised the bet limits in Deadwood. South Carolina and Colorado voters approved state lotteries and Massachusetts rejected a proposal to end greyhound racing.
Wisconsin voters rejected a referendum to allow the Ho Chunk Indian Tribe to build an off-reservation casino in La Crosse but approved a casino proposal from the Chippewa Indians to build a casino in Beloit.
Grey said he agrees with Rainbow/Push Coalition leader Jesse Jackson, who was quoted recently in the South Carolina election debate as saying, "The new chains of slavery happen to be credit cards and lottery tickets. Lotteries are complete and utter folly. Trying to hit it big is sheer nonsense."
"It is even more evil when state governments perpetuate the enslavement of their own citizens with state-sponsored legalized gambling," Grey said. "This is a mockery of the American ideal of good government."
Grey said it is extremely difficult to defeat the gambling industry in states where the governor is actively involved in the campaign in order to get tax revenues from gambling.
"In every state where we lost, the incumbent governor actively supported gambling interests," Grey said. "We only won in these states where the governor was publicly opposed to gambling. Our governors and state legislators have become addicted to the tax revenues they see coming from legalized gambling. They believe that gambling taxes provide an easy way to finance worthy causes such as higher education and public schools, but there is no doubt in my mind that any benefits to education are offset by the slavery to gambling money that results."