Detroit casino applicants face months of scrutiny

Monday, April 20, 1998 | 9:07 a.m.

Greektown/Chippewa Indians, Atwater/Circus Circus and MGM Grand are seeking state casino licenses, now that they have won city council approval.

The gaming board's investigations are expected to take from four to 12 months and will be followed by a public hearing. After that, the board's five members will decide whether to issue the groups a license.

"We're ready," said Nelson Westrin, the board's executive director and a former assistant state attorney general. "We think we've put together an efficient staff."

His staff includes 29 members of the Michigan State Police, four assistant state attorneys general and three agents from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, the Detroit Free Press reported Monday.

The review includes gathering information on the moral character, reputation, associates, financial responsibility, financing, management capability and criminal history for key officials and investors in the three casino groups.

"Your record is wide open," said Alan Feldman, a vice president at Mirage Resorts in Las Vegas. "They go back 20 years and ask about every check you deposited.

"They will talk to your teachers, friends and customers. All the acts of your adult life are open to scrutiny," he said.

Automatic disqualification comes if a group member has been convicted of a felony, or a misdemeanor involving gambling, theft, dishonesty or fraud, or of numerous misdemeanors.

Because corporate executives of Nevada-based MGM Grand and Circus Circus have undergone previous investigations for licenses in other states, "nothing surprising" is likely to surface about them, said William Eadington, director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada at Reno.

The question, said Eadington, will be what investigators turn up on the groups' hundreds of officials and investors, most of them based in Michigan, who have never undergone such probes.

"Every person who has at least 1 percent or more interest in the casino has to be subject to a background investigation," Westrin said. "In the case of a publicly held company, it's 5 percent or more."

However, his staff could investigate people with less than a 1 percent stake if needed, he said.

"We just want to make sure that it's a well-regulated industry, that it's conducted in the best interests of the people who participate, as well as the general public."