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OHIO — Two Cleveland-area men trying to win Ohio voter approval for a single gambling casino in the Cincinnati area yesterday came to Maumee to attack a competitor that they said is bankrolling the opposition.

Rick Lertzman and Dr. Brad Pressman, co-founders of MyOhioNow, claimed that their proposal will yield 5,000 new Ohio jobs and generate a 30 percent gross receipts tax that would be distributed to all the counties in Ohio. Issue 6 on the statewide ballot asks voters to amend the Ohio Constitution to allow a casino resort off I-71 near Cincinnati. They accused Penn National Gaming Inc., owner of Toledo’s Raceway Park and the Argosy casino just over the Indiana border, of planning to spend $40 million on ads to defeat the question. “Issue 6 has a huge economic upside and huge economic benefits,” Mr. Lertzman said. He accused Penn National of “hiding behind $40 million in ads” to protect their casino from competition. The amendment would subject the casino to a tax of up to 30 percent on its gross receipts. However, if another casino is allowed to open in Ohio the tax on the MyOhioNow casino would be lowered to whatever the other casino’s tax rate is. Mr. Lertzman, a former business liquidator, and Dr. Pressman, a retired podiatrist, used a conference room in a Maumee hotel yesterday to make their case. They are partners with Lakes Entertainment Inc. of Minnesota in a joint venture called Blue Water which would own the proposed casino. Lakes Entertainment operates private and tribal casinos in Michigan and elsewhere. They ran a signature petition that succesfully put the question on the Nov. 4 election ballot. Penn National spokesman Bob Tenenbaum said
MyOhioNow is seeking a monopoly license. He said the potential 30 percent tax would end up as zero if the federal government approves any of the 12 Native American casinos that he said have been applied for in Ohio because those casinos are not subject to state tax. “You’re writing into the constitution a monopoly for one casino in Clinton County which potentially could wind up paying no taxes on their profits,” Mr. Tenenbaum said. Mr. Lertzman and Dr. Pressman have a study that they said shows a very low probability of Indians winning the right to establish a casino in Ohio. Also opposing Issue 6 is the Ohio Roundtable, which is opposed to gambling. Mr. Tenenbaum refused to say how much money the group will spend. Penn National backed an unsuccessful racetrack-casino proposal in 2006.Toledo Blade

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HARRISBURG, Pa. — Board also suspends or revokes seven employee licenses and

awards two local law enforcement grants

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board today assessed Moutainview Thoroughbred Racing Association d/b/a Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Court a fine of $5,000 for permitting an underage person to play slot machines.

The fine stems from a July 20, 2008 incident where a 20-year-old entered the gaming floor and played slot machines for about 25 minutes before casino security personnel requested identification and found the person to be underage. At the time of the incident, Penn National permitted individuals 18 and older to be on the gaming floor but not play slot machines. This matter, however, has caused Penn National to alter their policy and ban all patrons under the age of 21 from being on the gaming floor. This similar policy is now in effect at all 7 operating casinos in Pennsylvania.

The Board also today suspended or revoked five non-gaming employee registrations and suspended or revoked two gaming employee permits where circumstances rendered the holder ineligible, unqualified or unsuitable to hold the registration under the standards and requirements of the Gaming Act.

In other business the Board approved two new grant requests totaling $120,643.56 to local law enforcement agencies to fund programs designed to thwart the operation of illegal slot machines in the Commonwealth. The grants were:

    --  $41,569.56 - Hellertown Police Department

 in Northampton County

  --  $79,074.00 - Borough of Homestead Police Department

 in Allegheny County

The Board has now awarded 29 grants throughout the Commonwealth totaling $3,247,890.86 under the program.

The Local Law Enforcement Grant program was approved by the legislature as part of the Gaming Act and permits up to $5 million annually to be given to local law enforcement agencies to fund programs designed to thwart the operation of illegal slot machines in the Commonwealth. Maximum grants amounts are $250,000 and the funding comes exclusively from revenues generated from licensed slot machine facilities.

Information and applications are available on the PGCB website at www.pgcb.state.pa.us.

The Board also announced today that it has cancelled its Thursday, October 9, 2008 meeting. The next scheduled meeting will now be on October 14, 2008 and begin at 3:00 pm in Hearing Room #1 in the North Office Building in Harrisburg.

CONTACT: Doug Harbach or Richard McGarvey, +1-717-346-8321

SOURCE Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board

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PORTLAND, Maine - The chief architect of a proposed resort casino in western Maine’s Oxford County outlined design plans Tuesday and the company said it hoped to announce a specific location for the $150 million project before the end of next week.Officials of the Olympia Group unveiled a concept sketch of Oxford Highlands Resort-Spa-Casino in advance of a Nov. 4 statewide referendum that will determine whether the project will be allowed to go forward.

Architect Peter Wilday of Reno, Nev., said he was attempting to re-create the charm of an old New England village. “This isn’t a big Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT ) box out there,” he said, citing such features as dormers, turrets, cornices, lots of brickwork and buildings of various sizes set amid clusters of mature trees.

The project, to be built in two phases, would include a 300-room hotel, a 30,000-square-foot conference center and 100,000 square feet of casino space that would accommodate various table games and up to 1,500 slot machines, Wilday said. Other amenities would include a spa, three restaurants and indoor and outdoor swimming pools, he said. A golf course could be added later.

Wilday, whose familiarity with Maine reflects the summers he spent as a child on Maranacook Lake in central Maine, said the casino and four-seasons resort will be the finest such facility on the East Coast. “It will be smaller. A lot smaller. But it will be the best.”

Las Vegas-based Olympia, which bought control of the venture from Evergreen Mountain Enterprises after its founder abandoned the campaign following legal problems, vowed Tuesday to pump $100 million into the project in the first year. An additional $50 million would be invested in the second phase of construction.

Wilday and spokeswoman Pat LaMarche said the turmoil in the financial markets would not affect the company’s ability to raise capital for the project.

“The company is very well funded. They deal with projects of this size all the time,” Wilday said.

Wilday said his design concept is far different from that of Maine’s only other gambling palace, the $132 million Hollywood Slots that opened this summer in Bangor. Free from the constraints posed by an 8-acre urban parcel, Wilday said he could avoid a “monolithic” approach and blend the resort’s components in a village-like setting.

The architect admitted it was unusual to try to come up with a design before a site is chosen. “We’re coming at this backward,” he acknowledged.

Dennis Bailey of Casinos NO!, which has battled the expansion of gambling in Maine, was unimpressed by Olympia’s descriptions of the resort.

“Pretty pictures won’t change the fact that even the proponents of this casino bill call it a ‘mess,’” he said, citing provisions that would lower the legal age to gamble and work in a casino and give the developer a 10-year monopoly on gambling facilities. LaMarche has promised to seek changes in the Legislature if the measure wins voter approval.

Olympia has been examining various locations for the resort and is close to a deal on a 25-acre site, LaMarche said. Noting that Mainers have already begun voting by absentee ballot, she said it was important to identify the site quickly. “We’re playing beat the clock as fast as we can,” she said.

Associated Press.

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By Jim Finkle

BOSTON, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Foxwoods Resort Casino, North America’s biggest casino, announced plans on Tuesday to lay off 700 workers or about 6 percent of its work force, citing a drop in gambling and the weakening U.S. economy.

The 340,000-square foot casino in Connecticut, owned by the Mashantucket Pequot Indian tribe, is the biggest player in the thriving Native American gaming industry, which was worth more than $27 billion nationwide in gross revenues in 2007.

“As is happening to so many organizations, the economic issues facing our nation and regional consumer economy have negatively impacted our revenue growth,” Tribal Council Chairman Michael Thomas said in a written statement.

The job cuts come just four months after Foxwoods opened with much fanfare a new $700 million skyscraper in the woods of Connecticut adjacent to the main casino. The MGM Grand at Foxwoods added 1,400 slot machines to Foxwoods’ previous 7,200, as well as a new 4,000-seat theater.

“People are gambling less” said tribe spokeswoman Lori Potter. “It’s been sudden.”

The credit crunch, combined with higher prices for energy and food staples, has sapped consumer spending power — a double whammy for casinos, which depend on customers with plenty of disposable income.

Gambling revenue on the famous Las Vegas Strip is down 6.5 percent in the year to July, recent data show. That’s hurt gaming giants such as MGM Mirage (MGM) and privately held Harrah’s Entertainment — owned by private equity firms Apollo Global Management and TPG Capital LP [TPG.UL]. 

At Foxwoods, gambling activity fluctuated over the summer before slowing sharply, Potter said. “There was a significant enough decline over just the past several weeks that we needed to make this adjustment,” she said.

The Mohegan tribe, which owns the rival Mohegan Sun casino, last week announced plans to scale back a $734 million expansion project at that facility, citing the weak economy.

Foxwoods, which employs about 11,000 people, and Mohegan Sun generate combined annual gambling revenues of around $2.5 billion, according to the Indian Gaming Industry Report by Alan Meister, an economist with Analysis Group, based on 2006 data, the latest available.

The Mashantucket Pequots — numbering around 800 to 900 people — have given some $2.6 billion to the state, 25 percent of slot revenues, since the casino opened in 1992. As a sovereign nation, the tribe is not required to pay taxes or to make public its financial reports. (Additional reporting by Claudia Parsons and Deena Beasley; Writing by Jason Szep amd editing by Bernard Orr)

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