It looks like MGM’s pre-emptive plan to unveil its enormous gambling resort in National Harbor didn’t come back and bite them on their proverbial keester.
The Vegas-based casino operator has been angling to build an integrated resort in Maryland for a long time and now, it appears that it’s gotten the stamp of approval from the state to proceed with its license application.
Late last week, MGM Resorts International received the good news: it had passed Maryland’s background check. In doing so, the company is now free and clear to bid on a casino license, one it plans to build on a sprawling expanse of land in National Harbor just outside of Washington DC.
Receiving the thumbs up from state regulators also takes a heavy burden off of MGM, which for the past year has had to repeatedly evade allegations that it has a history of underhanded business moves with folks (hello, Pansy Ho!) in Macau. It’s come to the point that the company’s chairman, Jim Murren, has had to repeatedly debunk all these allegations and emphasize that its relationships in Macau are all on the up-and-up.
To be clear: passing the background check doesn’t necessarily mean that MGM is automatically on the inside track to secure the sixth casino license in Maryland – or one of the three being offered in Massachusetts for that matter.
Both jurisdictions operate independent of each other, but it’s also worth noting that these places usually rely on their contemporaries when it comes to screening an operator to see if the latter’s business and moral standing both check out on the affirmative.
If for nothing else, the decision by Maryland regulators to give MGM Resorts the go-signal to file for a casino license will be taken into serious consideration by their Massachusetts counterpart.
For now, MGM Resorts has a pulse in Maryland and it’s ambitious integrated casino and resort proposal in National Harbor finally has the kind of sturdy legs to stand on that’s all-too important in the industry
