The Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, which controls Connecticut’s Mohegan Sun, and was passed over for the Boston area license, is continuing to press its lawsuit appealing that decision—and is using Steve Wynn’s fall from grace as new ammunition.
The license was granted to Wynn Resorts in September 2014. Not long after, the Mohegan tribe sued to reverse the license, arguing that the process was tainted from the beginning in favor of Wynn, a Massachusetts native.
That legal battle continues in Suffolk Superior Court, where the tribe’s lawyers have been pressing the accusation that the MGC overlooked the criminal backgrounds of two people who were formerly investors in the land that Wynn purchased in Everett for the site.
Commission attorneys argue that the tribe has been unable to offer any proof of favoritism and instead is trying to second-guess the commission.
The judge will hear oral arguments in April.
Nothing that has happened so far has slowed down the pace of the construction of the $2.4 billion Wynn Boston Harbor tower, which is rising on the banks of the Mystic River, across the water from the Boston skyline.
But it is also true that Wynn remains a major shareholder in the company, despite stepping down as chief executive officer and president.
Meanwhile, a $2 million donation that Wynn Resorts made to the Republican Governors Association in 2014 was not improper because it was made after the Massachusetts Gaming Commission awarded the license for the Boston metro casino to Wynn, the MGC ruled last week.
The commission’s chief enforcement counsel, Loretta Lillios, looked at the donation at the behest of the three Democrats who are running against GOP incumbent Charlie Baker: Jay Gonzalez, Bob Massie and Setti Warren.
Meanwhile, commission and its staff continues its investigation of Wynn Resorts. It is following up on the recent resignation of Steve Wynn from the organization due to multiple accusations of sexual improprieties, and the question whether his payoffs to one of the women who accused him was deliberately kept from the commission when the company was applying for its license.
MGM Springfield
The $960 million MGM Springfield has begun the long lope that will soon spring into a sprint toward the September opening. And the major part of that is hiring.
MGM plans to hiring 3,000 employees, including 450 table dealers. The average salary, including benefits, will be $45,000. About 200 staffers are already at work while another 2,000 are fully involved in construction.
MGC estimates that the number of applicants for jobs of all kinds at all three of the planned casino authorized by the 2011 gaming expansion legislation will range from 7,000-12,000. The great majority of those jobs will go to high school grads or those with a GED—or higher.
The jobs include barbers, hair stylists, massage therapists for the spa, staff for the luxury cinema, pastry chefs and even butchers.
Wanda Gispert, who is in charge of “talent and workforce development” for MGM, has been contacting colleges and high schools for many months now as part of her recruitment efforts.
She told the Daily Hampshire Gazette: “We have a lot of positions people might not be aware of. Any profession except for medical, we have it here.”
A few blocks from the casino itself is the Career Center, in Springfield’s South End, where computers are available on-site, so applicants can learn about jobs that are available and hiring and submit applications. Professionals are there to answer questions. There is even an on-site drug testing facility—although MGM does not test for marijuana use.
The Center will soon be open seven days a week. Currently 600 potential employees have used the Center and 150 ended up employed by MGM.
Holyoke Community College and Springfield Technical Community College are working in association with MGM and the Massachusetts Gaming Commission to provide training for casino and casino-related jobs through the Massachusetts Casino Career Training Institute. The Institute held its first classes in downtown Springfield last week. It offers classes in blackjack, roulette, craps, poker and other games.
Anyone who completes these courses is guaranteed an interview with MGM.
Holyoke and MGM also worked together to open the $6.43 million HCC MGM Culinary Institute last month. The 20,000 square foot facility has five European style kitchens.
MGM Springfield’s Vice President of Table Games, Robert Westerfield, told the Gazette, “I went to school just like these guys. I didn’t know a kitchen table from a craps table.” He worked as a dealer for a year before becoming a supervisor. “All positions have a career path,” he said.
The University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Isenberg School of Management also offers a casino management certificate program.
MGM is also busy filling positions at the very top rungs of the company. President and COO Mike Mathis likes to brag about the diversity of his leadership team. He’s been conducting interviews among finalists for the team—he calls department heads “number ones”— for the last few months.
Nine of the team’s 16 members are minorities or female or both, one of the best examples of diversity in the industry, he says.
He told BusinessWest, “The résumé gives me good insight into what their technical experience is. But I’m looking for personality and cultural fit, and you can usually get to that through them talking about their experiences.”
For Mathis “diversity” includes gender, age, race, point of origin and experience in the gaming field as well as with MGM itself.
He explained, “We have some who are internal MGM and others who are external to our company but in the industry.” He added, “We have a combination of young and those not as young, as I like to say, those with a little more experience. And we have a few from outside the industry; the company took a chance on me, and we’ve continued to take some of those chances on others.”
Now that he has the top positions nearly filled, “The number ones hire number twos, and the number twos hire number threes. And then, from there, you start building out your business plan and prepare for mass hiring.”
Mathis was legal counsel for the Venetian Las Vegas in 1999 and helped open Echelon Place in Las Vegas, but this is his first experience putting together a team from scratch.
He told BusinessWest, “What’s really nice is how, organically, this team reflects the personality of the community and our original vision. For me, as a day-one employee, I feel I’m a steward of the original vision of our president, Bill Hornbuckle, and of the mayor and the different community-group stakeholders I originally met with. And I want to reflect all that in the team we put together.”
Mathis thinks one reason he put together such a good team is because he was new at it—and in fact he had not worked with most of the team members before. “I came at it without some of those preconceived notions about who the team members should be. The group is really eclectic, and we make each other better.”
