Mandalay pulls out of AGA

David Strow

Friday, March 29, 2002 | 10:59 a.m.

In a sudden move, Las Vegas-based casino giant Mandalay Resort Group has pulled out of the American Gaming Association, the gaming industry's national lobbying organization.

"We just got a call out of the blue ... there was no warning," Frank Fahrenkopf, chief executive of the AGA, said today. "I think we're caught in the middle of something."

Fahrenkopf said he was "very disappointed" Mandalay was pulling out, and said he hoped to have a discussion with Mandalay officials to see if the issues could be resolved.

"We've always valued Mandalay's participation," Fahrenkopf said.

Mandalay has paid its AGA dues through the end of the second quarter, but its pullout is immediate, said John Marz, Mandalay's senior vice president of marketing. Mandalay has been a member of the AGA since its founding in 1995.

"We just had issues we didn't see eye to eye on," Marz said. "There have been issues, more than one over the years, that we have not agreed on with the organization."

Marz declined to specify what those issues were.

"This doesn't mean there won't be issues we won't support them on, but we're going to take it on an issue by issue basis," Marz said. "We will support the issues that are important to us."

That decision drew some flak from MGM MIRAGE, one of the organization's largest members and contributors.

"I think it's important for the industry to be united, even when we disagree," said MGM MIRAGE Senior Vice President Alan Feldman. "When our point of view was different from other companies, we didn't bolt the organization. That's not the way to respond to those kind of things."

There has been speculation that Mandalay pulled out because of anger over what it saw as favoritism within the AGA toward MGM MIRAGE.

Feldman downplayed this talk, saying Mandalay had not communicated any such concerns to his company.

"I would think our relationship with (Mandalay Vice President) Mike Sloan and others at Mandalay was such that if they had concerns, they would have expressed them to us," Feldman said. "I have to believe someone's just speculating what it is."