IPI asks for extension to complete resort
“We are not corrupt.”
That’s the message from casino commissioners in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, in response to a Bloomberg News article titled “A Chinese Casino Has Conquered a Piece of America.”
The piece by Matthew Campbell, published February 15, suggested that casino operator Imperial Pacific International holds undue sway over lawmakers in the Pacific Island chain, a U.S. territory. The article alleged widespread government corruption and lax oversight of the gaming industry on Saipan, home to the only casino resort in the CNMI, built and operated by IPI.
According to Marianas Variety, Commission Chairman Juan Sablan responded to the article by saying, “We are paying for everything we do here. For the work we do, we are not getting any money. We are questioning every detail of the casino operations. Please, I ask the community, if you know anyone on the commission doing such things, report it to the police, to the media or to the FBI as we don’t tolerate such actions. But no one here has received anything of value from IPI.”
Vice Chairman Joseph Reyes said, “I give ourselves a pat on the back for doing a great job. We have exerted so much effort to be on top of everything here and we have moved forward in what we need to do. I am offended by the accusations of corruption as none of us here are corrupt and I am not corrupt. I dare the Bloomberg writer to prove it. I challenge him to prove his accusations.”
Commission Executive Director Edward Deleon Guerrero said the Bloomberg article was slanted and filled with untruths. “It’s obvious that this is a political year—it’s the political season, but we are not politicians, we are regulators of the industry,” he said. “The commission has tried to do the right thing and regulate the industry. This writer came here and spent 30 minutes of his time looking around the island and listed a lot of facts in his article that are selective and accuses the administration of corruption.”
Guerrero took exception to the writer pointing out that he is the uncle of Saipan Governor Ralph Torres. “He failed to mention that I was not hired by the governor but by the commission before he became governor. He failed to recognize that none of the commissioners were appointed by the governor. He twisted the facts and made it look like we’re in collusion. It’s exaggerated, uncalled for and very unfair.”
He called IPI “low-hanging fruit, easy to pick and easy to criticize” and added that “everyone here has a financial stake in IPI’s success.”
According to Inside Asian Gaming, Guerrero explained the extraordinarily high VIP rolling chip volumes at the Saipan casino by saying Macau operators have failed to report the real numbers. Imperial Pacific reported VIP volume of US$32.4 billion in 2016 on just 16 tables—and that was at its temporary casino, Best Sunshine Live, located in a shopping mall.
That total included US$3.95 billion in September 2016, exceeding the volumes recorded by Macau’s largest casinos. IPI has since relocated casino operations to its new Imperial Pacific Resort and also stopped reporting monthly VIP roll.
“The CCC notes that the rolling volume is large,” Guerrero said. “The commonwealth has a low tax structure which the CCC believes dis-incentivizes the tax avoidance schemes believed to be prevalent elsewhere which keep reported volumes lower than actual.
“Other possible contributing factors to Saipan witnessing a very high volume of gambling operations on a per-table basis may be due to combinations of the following factors: IPI’s ownership stems from one of the largest junkets in Macau, it thus has a very strong network in the VIP market; due to strong ties to VIP patrons; China’s anti-corruption campaign has diversified VIP patrons to a new place around the Asia Pacific region such as Saipan and the visa-waiver program available for Chinese players has eased their trips into Saipan.”
Deleon Guerrero added, “The numbers being reported are true. The CCC has a full-time Audit and Compliance Division that reviews the daily rolling transactions. The reported gaming activities and more specifically the rolling volumes are true figures.”
In related news, according to Radio New Zealand, IPI is set to request an extension to the August 31 deadline for completion of its casino resort.
