In an Arkansas lawsuit, the Cherokee Nation’s Legends Resort and Casino LLC is urging Judge Wendell Griffen to void the state racing commission’s decision to grant the Pope County casino license to Gulfside Casino Partnership.
Legends contends that Gulfside does not meet constitutional requirements for a casino license, and says it is the only qualified applicant. It also wants the judge to rule that racing commissioners broke the law when they licensed Mississippi-based Gulfside.
Generally speaking, Legends’ lawsuit states gaming regulators’ decision to award the license to Gulfside was “a cavalcade of errors, arbitrary actions and legal non-compliance” that failed to recognize Legends’ “objectively superior” application.
Legends notes it has “substantially” more experience in operating casinos and pledged it could get the operation running faster by funding the $250 million project itself rather than arranging financing.
The suit intensifies the already complex legal situation. Commissioners originally rejected Gulfside’s application; the company sued the racing commission in Pulaski County Circuit Court in 2019 to get its application reconsidered. Gulfside won that case last March. However, recently the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled that Legends Resort was wrongly barred from being allowed to join the suit defending the commission’s ruling against Gulfside. Commissioners recently formalized their 3-2 decision from July, granting the license to Gulfside.
Legends’ 87-page lawsuit, including 43 exhibits, names the commission, its seven members and Gulfside. It cites a “plethora of errors” commissioners allegedly committed in favoring Gulfside, including: the commission’s failure to adopt legally sufficient facts and conclusions; and wrongfully considering Gulfside a qualified applicant when it should have been disqualified for submitting an inadequate application and violating gaming application rules, including deliberately submitting misleading information about the financial history and casino experience of the owners.
