Looking to Wynn in Philadelphia
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
By: Tom MacDonald
tmacdonald@whyy.org
The struggling, yet to be built Foxwoods Casino in Philadelphia could get a new lease on life.
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Steve Wynn, the man behind spectacular gaming resorts from Atlantic City to Macau has announced he's stepping in as managing partner of the Foxwoods project on the Delaware River. Joseph Weinert is a casino analyst. He says just the mention of Wynn's name in connection with Foxwoods has started tongues wagging in the industry.
Weinert: In the gambling world, Steve Wynn is the magic man, transformed the Las Vegas strip with the 1989 opening of Mirage, the possibility of him coming to any property creates excitement he builds beautiful properties, he employs a lot of people he makes a lot of money any jurisdiction would be happy to have Steve Wynn setting up shop.
Weinert says the decision to add table games had to be a motivating factor for Wynn to come to Philadelphia, and adds it could be a prelude to Wynn opening up another resort in Atlantic City.
A look into campaign finance data shows that Wynn donated $75,000 to Governor Ed Rendell's first gubernatorial campaign. See the Our Philadelphia blog post below:
http://ourphiladelphia.org/blog/8