New Jersey Gaming Regulators Deem Pansy Ho Guilty By Association

MGM Mirage is partnering with Pansy Ho on casino development projects in Macau, and that rubbed New Jersey gaming regulators the wrong way. Due to their insistence that MGM drop their partnership with Ho, the company has decided to pull out of the Atlantic City casino market.

The debate began last year when regulators found Ho to be an "unsuitable" partner for MGM. That proclamation led to MGM announcing recently that they were selling their fifty percent share in the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa.

"From the beginning of its efforts to enter Macau, MGM pursued partnerships with persons that it knew were associated with those aspects of gaming in Macau most heavily penetrated by organized crime," wrote New Jersey's Division of Gaming Enforcement, to the Casino Control Commission, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.

MGM disputes the claim that they are at all apart of any criminal behavior. Pansy Ho has many business interests with her father, Stanley Ho. The elder Ho has spent a lifetime developing the casino industry in Asia.

Many have linked Stanley Ho to organized crime in China. The rap on him is that he allows organized crime to operate in his casinos, but there has been no evidence to back up those claims. Even so, New jersey regulators, considered to be among the hardest in the nation, were having no connection between them and the Ho family.

MGM, on the other hand, has kept their business plans with Pansy Ho, and has decided to pull out of Atlantic City. The city has been devastated by the economy in the past couple of years, and Pennsylvania and other Northeastern states are gaining ground.

March 17, 2010
Posted By Terry Goodwin
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com
Submit News!