What did Wynn know and when did it know it?; MGM REIT a hit

An unwelcome sideshow for Wynn Boston Harbor is playing out in a Massachusetts courtroom, in a court case of “excruciating details.” What is at issue is whether Dustin
steve-wynn-1DeNunzio, Anthony Gattineri and Charles Lightbody attempted to defraud Wynn Resorts by concealing convicted felon Lightbody’s ownership role in the 35 acres Wynn acquired from them. While the three men are all in danger of spending the next 20 years in prison, Wynn Resorts faces the PR blotch of appearing to have been, at best, willfully ignorant of who owned the land it was buying. Wynn go-between Daniel Gaquin is alleged not to have asked who the owners were. Worse still, Wynn’s Matthew Maddox and General Counsel Kim Sinatra were said to have been informed of Lightbody’s involvement and showed no concern.

Claiming vindication was Massachusetts Gaming Commission member Gayle Cameron, who said, “I was absolutely concerned about the association with organized crime. The other issue that was of great concern was what the principals of Wynn knew.” That concern may be harder to finesse than DeNunzio et. al.’s potential guilt. Following the trial for Forbes, Walter Pavlo concluded that the prosecution’s case, while elaborate, was weak and the Lightbody connection was hiding in plain sight: “just a legitimate note to buyout a partner whose presence on the deal would have meant its demise. Many would call that prudent business.” The discovery of Lightbody’s presence saved Wynn roughly $40 million on the land deal but remains to be seen whether the company was as shocked as it claimed to be, when the defense presents its case.

* MGM Growth Properties stock traded even higher than expected, enabling MGM to raise the $1 billion-plus it sought on the first day of trading. Now we’ll see what sort of retail therapy MGM has in mind with that billion.

* Maybe it could buy Marina Bay Sands. Crazy as it seems, Sheldon Adelson has been musing aloud to investors about selling the Singapore megaresort, which may have cost as much as $750 million $7.5 billion to build but which has been mad lucrative. However, Adelson generally doesn’t do something without a very good reason, so we’ll have to wait and see what’s behind Foxy Grandpa’s latest move.

* Oklahoma both is and isn’t the fourth state to offer online poker. True, the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma just got the go-ahead to launch an i-poker site. However, only offshore play can be accepted. Heck, the tribe isn’t even running the site, farming that out to Universal Entertainment Group. So the question, “Is there Internet gambling in Oklahoma” becomes an existential conundrum.

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