LV casino operator looks to expand to Mexico

Thursday, July 5, 2001 | 11 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

REYNOSA, Mexico -- A Las Vegas-area developer agreed Wednesday to build a casino and luxury hotel in this border city, even though laws lifting a ban on casinos have yet to be approved by Mexico's Congress.

Officials representing the Nevada Palace Hotel and Casino pledged an initial investment of $100 million for construction of a hotel, casino and 18-hole golf course and country club in this sweltering, crime-ridden city opposite McAllen, Texas.

The project is dependent on congressional approval of a bill allowing casinos. William Wortman, director of the Nevada Palace Hotel and Casino, said he believed lawmakers in Mexico City will lift the ban.

"Reynosa has a strategic position that will bring tourism from the other side of the border," Wortman said.

Wortman, a vice president of Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip in the 1980s, is a part-owner of Nevada Palace on the Boulder Strip. The 22-year-old hotel-casino near Harmon Avenue has 212 rooms and 515 slot machines.

Wortman is also part-owner of Renata's, a small casino in Henderson.

The Mexico project is expected to generate more than $12 million in sales for this city of 340,000, said Patricio Mora Dominguez, president of Mexico's private International Tourist and Entertainment Center.

Mexican President Vicente Fox said in April that he would be in favor of overturning national laws barring gambling if new casinos are built "in areas frequented by foreign tourists."

The tourism industry has lobbied for years for legalized gambling with little success, claiming it was needed to make Mexico competitive with other vacation spots that offer legal betting.

Almost all forms of gambling except lotteries, raffles and betting on horses at a few race tracks are illegal in Mexico.