The Massachusetts Gaming Commission could revoke Wynn Resorts’ license to operate a 3 million-square-foot casino that it is building in Everett just across the Charles River from Boston because of numerous sexual assault and harassment allegations against the company’s chief executive and chairman, Steve Wynn.
The loss of the license would be the most extreme outcome of a gaming commission investigation into the allegations, and it’s not clear what would happen to the partially built Wynn Boston Harbor casino, which Wynn Resorts says it has spent $1.13 billion assembling and building.
It is currently expected to open in 2019, and has been seen as a major milestone in casino construction for the Boston area (and one not without controversy, even before the assault and harassment allegations surfaced in late January).
For now, the gaming commission is investigating how Wynn Resorts handled the accusations. In particular, it wants to know why the company did not disclose a settlement related to the allegations before the commission granted Wynn a license in September 2014.
Such supposed chicanery could render Wynn—the man and the company—not “suitable” to hold a gaming license in Massachusetts, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first broke the news of the allegations.
Steve Wynn denies the accusations; and the company says the commission “did not ask for disclosure of that type of information” during the licensing application process.
And what happens to the partially built Wynn Boston Harbor if Wynn does lose the license? It’s not clear, though a development in the 1980s in New Jersey’s Atlantic City offers a possible blueprint, per the Journal:
Hilton Hotels Corp. planned to open a casino-hotel in Atlantic City, N.J., but state regulators denied the company’s license, saying some connected to the project had ties to organized crime. Hilton denied the allegations, but the company decided to sell the unopened building to Donald Trump.
Stay tuned.
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