Robert Saucier, the CEO of Nevada-headquartered Galaxy Gaming Inc., which develops, manufactures and distributes casino table games and enhanced casino systems, has responded to a recent decision by the California Gambling Control Commission with his own four-page letter to shareholders, assuring that the company pointed to by California gaming regulators was a “predecessor entity that ceased business operation in 2009 and dissolved”.
“The proceedings did not directly involve Galaxy,” Saucier added before saying that, “it is business as usual [at Galaxy ] as we continue to provide our products and services without any interruption.”
Despite being a Nevada-based company, Galaxy Gaming does a huge part of its business in California, particularly with individual tribes in the state where it’s licensed by these tribes. In his letter to shareholders, Saucier pointed out that despite the legal problems that seem to have been attached to Galaxy Gaming, the company’s “gaming license with California tribes is unchanged and in good standing”.
“Likewise, our status in all other jurisdictions we serve is also unchanged and remains in good standing. In fact, we continue to seek and acquire new licenses and approvals in additional jurisdictions.”
Saucier goes on to clarify to his shareholders that last week’s closed session was not a regulatory hearing and that he hadn’t had the “procedural ability” to correspond with the commission in any form whatsoever. But the most important section of his letter to the shareholders centered on debunking what he believed to be media misstatements and mischaracterizations. For starters, he said that neither Administrative Law Judge Catherine Frink nor the commission itself did not find the company suitable. The latter did not also rule against Galaxy Gaming. Nobody told the company to “stay out of California”. And Galaxy Gaming of California, LLC is not a subsidiary of Galaxy Gaming Inc. The man apparently isn’t afraid to throw all those “nots” in there.
But all those nots goes against numerous media reports saying the opposite thing, particularly when it comes to Galaxy Gaming’s checkered past that included providing misleading, withholding, or misstating numerous information to regulators prompting Administrative Law Judge Catherine Frink to describe Saucier as “evasive”, intentionally honest, and misleading in his response to questions.”
“In a highly regulated industry such as gaming, the failure to be forthcoming with relevant information was inexcusable,” Frink added.
The judge could be pointing to events that transpired in 2002 when Sacier applied for a gaming license with Tule River Tribe Gaming Commission. At that time, the commission launched an investigation with the assistance of the Bureau of Gaming Control and discovered that Saucier did not give full disclosure of facts that would have prevented the company from being given a license in California. In that report, Saucier allegedly left out numerous business dealings, including failure to mention an order to pay a $1.5 million judgment to Sherron Associates, a creditor in a hotel-casino project; failure to reveal gambling taxes owed to City of Spokane in WA State by his now defunct Mars Hotel and Casino; failure to mention gaming licenses from other states, including Washington and Nevada; failure to disclose his involvement in past lawsuits, including one where he sued the aforementioned Mars Hotel for $1.6 million in 1998, prompting the judge to say that “In essence, he sued himself and received a default judgment”; and having no business license in Nevada from 2001 to 2004, a requirement that he blamed was missing due to “oversight by staff”, among other things.
For his part, Saucier has denied all the allegations, pointing to the fact that he’s been around the California gaming scene for well over a decade now, and in that time the company has been on the up-and-up with its business dealings in the state.
But it seems that after the decision made by the California Gambling Control Commission, Galaxy Gaming LLC won’t be able to operate as a tribal vendor in the state. Saucier can’t request for a reconsideration until there’s new evidence, although it appears that because he believes that his “personal credibility is being questioned”, there’s a good chance that we haven’t seen the last of this case.
