Feb. 1, 2002 – A day after the 24th Legislature approved video lottery operations in the territory for the third time, the Casino Control Commission and one of two developers who have casino projects in the pipeline criticized the move in no uncertain terms.
Although the legislation that was approved Thursday would restrict video lotteries to the St. Thomas-St. John district, the blasts of opposition were from a St. Croix perspective.
A release from the commission Friday said that it remains opposed to the presence of video lottery terminals anywhere in the territory and that the legislation indicates "serious inconsistency" on the part of the Legislature.
"Since 1998," Shawna Richards, commission executive director, said, "the commission has fought against the introduction of VLT's to the territory on the basis of the risk it poses to regulated gaming as well as the commission's ongoing efforts to maintain a reputable jurisdiction that is attractive to casino-hotel developers."
Richards noted that two such developers have been granted conditional licenses and that rezoning critical to one of them, a half-billion-dollar venture, has just been approved. Resurrecting the idea of VLT operation anywhere in the territory at this juncture, she said, "could negatively impact ongoing and future casino development."
By law, St. Croix can have six casinos. Last Oct. 25, the Casino Control Commission reserved one of the two allowed "Casino II" licenses for Golden Gaming, which plans to build a 400-room resort and casino at Great Pond Bay. On Dec. 21, it reserved the other for Robin Bay Associates, which proposes to develop a $540 million resort-casino complex on St. Croix's South Shore.
"Casino II" is the second-largest of four categories of resort-casino properties, calling for 300 to 1,400 rooms and a casino of at least 10,000 square feet.
The action represented a vote of confidence on the commission's part and gave the developers two years to bring their plans to fruition. Just on Wednesday, the Senate approved rezoning that Robin Bay Associates said it needed in order to proceed..
On Friday, Paul Golden of Golden Gaming Inc., based in New Jersey, issued his own statement condemning the latest video lottery legislation.
Golden cited and supported the commission's stance stated earlier in the day, saying the operation of VLT's in the St. Thomas-St. John district "would undermine a legislatively mandated scheme to help the economically depressed island of St. Croix," while "the more successful islands of St. Thomas-St. John would receive the dubious benefit of providing an attraction which quite frankly, due to the continuing success of their tourism industry, is justified neither socially nor economically."
Further, Golden's statement said, video lottery operations "can run rampant from promoting gambling addiction and underage gambling to corruption through lack of regulatory insight."
Gov. Charles W. Turnbull vetoed both of the video lottery bills delivered to his desk last year, the more recent in August amid a blitz of lobbying by opponents characterizing VLT operations by such epithets as the "crack cocaine of gambling."
At that time, Treasure Bay V.I. Corp., which operates the territory's first and to date only functioning casino, at the Divi Carina Bay Resort, vowed to call off expansion plans if video lotteries were approved. And Golden Gaming and Robin Bay Associates threatened to pull out of the territory.
Golden on Friday described his own development plans for Great Pond Bay as "an example of exactly what the casino legislation was seeking." If the video lottery bill should become law, he said, "it will hamper my ability to move forward with the project."
