Column: Where did all the tribal gaming profits go?

Wednesday, December 16, 2009  

"Isn't it interesting that the people who have made the most money off of Indian gaming in Connecticut aren't even American Indians.

The big money off the top at Foxwoods, 9.9 percent of adjusted gross income through 2016, has been going to the rich Malaysian family that put up the first $58 million to build a casino on the Mashantucket Pequot reservation.

The deal was brokered by G. Michael Brown, the savvy New Jersey gambling lawyer who was hired by the Pequots to find someone to finance their casino and who - ta-da - came up with his own clients, the Lim family of Malaysia.

Certainly the Lims are forever grateful to Brown for helping tap so deep and for so long into the Pequot golden goose.

Indeed, even as a recession-battered Foxwoods struggles under the onerous terms of the original Lim loan deal, Brown continues to profit by his associations with the Malaysians.

He was part of the deal in which the Lims put up money seven years ago for the Seneca Indians to build a casino at Niagara Falls. The $80 million, five-year loan had a whopping 29 percent interest rate.

More recently, Brown was the Malaysians' point man in a deal to take a near-controlling share in a racetrack and casino in Monticello, N.Y., that includes an interest in a proposed casino resort by the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe."

Get the Story:
David Collins: Where have all the Indian gaming profits gone? (The New London Day 12/16)