Commonwealth Casino Commission board chair Edward C. Deleon Guerrero questions Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC\u2019s logic in its claim that the continued existence of poker arcades and e-gaming in the CNMI has affected the financial viability of its Imperial Palace Resort in Garapan.<\/p>\n
Speaking at a recent CCC board monthly meeting, Deleon Guerrero reminded IPI chief executive officer Donald R. Browne that, based on IPI\u2019s performance, 5% or even less of their earnings came from slot machines and that the remaining 92%-95% have always been from the VIP tables.<\/p>\n
Deleon Guerrero was reacting to Browne\u2019s Aug. 26 letter to Gov. Ralph DLG Torres, during which he claimed that, by allowing poker machines and e-gaming to operate outside of the casino, the CNMI is in violation of the exclusive casino license that IPI holds.<\/p>\n
Deleon Guerrero asked Browne to elaborate more on that letter but Browne said that they are still waiting for the governor to respond. When asked if Browne was expecting Torres to say, \u201cOkay, no problem,\u201d the IPI CEO replied that it\u2019s just the process that they are taking.<\/p>\n
CCC vice chair Ramon Dela Cruz said he\u2019s disturbed with IPI raising the issue about allowing poker machines and e-gaming to operate outside of the casino and its implication that Club C and other facilities taking away business from IPI. \u201cI thought that this was very obvious during the negotiation with the Lottery Commission,\u201d said Dela Cruz, citing that these establishments were already operating before even IPI came here. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that was permitted by law. Why raise that issue now?\u201d Dela Cruz asked.<\/p>\n
Browne reiterated IPI\u2019s position about the CNMI allowing the proliferation of gambling outside the casino.<\/p>\n
CCC legal counsel assistant attorney general Michael Ernest said he believes that CCC can wait for the Office of the Attorney General to have an opinion about the issue. His gut feeling, however, is that the casino license itself says it\u2019s subject to all other laws.<\/p>\n
He said the casino gaming law, Public Law 18-56, doesn\u2019t say all gaming. Ernest said IPI understands that their market is not locals.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir market always was and presently is off-island tourists. So I\u2019m not willing to say yes or no but those are just my thoughts going into this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Commonwealth Casino Commission board chair Edward C. Deleon Guerrero questions Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":329251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[12497],"class_list":["post-329459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-ipi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}