Monday, August 10, 2009

Pittsburgh Takes a Gamble

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports:
Near the point where its two mighty rivers converge, the city once known for steel yesterday took a flier on a new industry: gambling.

The opening of the $780 million Rivers Casino here made Pittsburgh the largest city in Pennsylvania to have a gambling hall and brought the total number of operating casinos statewide to nine. Five more casinos have yet to open, including two in Philadelphia.

"I want to thank all of you here and all of the citizens of Pittsburgh," said Neil Bluhm, the Chicago billionaire developer who took over Rivers Casino a year ago and is also majority owner of the planned SugarHouse Casino for the Philadelphia waterfront.

After Bluhm's brief remarks, confetti rained down and fireworks went off.
For more on Neil Bluhm's connection to Chicago Alderman Burke and the late Rosemont Mayor Donald Stephens from Crain's Chicago Business October 24, 2005 :
After six years of leaks and lawsuits, you'd think we'd long ago have learned all there is to know about the dealings behind the proposed Emerald Casino. Not so. Thanks to a sudden loquaciousness by Rosemont Mayor Donald Stephens, the roles of some key local political players are emerging. And it's quite a tale.

The specific names he mentions: Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan, who, according to Mr. Stephens, worked to get an associate into the Emerald deal-the same deal that the speaker's daughter, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, has been trying to bust up. And Tony Rezko, the political and personal fund-raiser for the Blagojevich family. And Chicago Alderman Ed Burke (14th), who, Mr. Stephens says, tried to pull strings for developer Neil Bluhm.

I don't know why Mr. Stephens is talking now. (He griped in the papers last week about how Mr. Madigan ought to control his daughter.) Perhaps he fears that the Illinois Gaming Board is getting ready to ban Rosemont from the casino biz, so he has nothing to lose by yakking. Whatever, here's what else he says about the rush to get into what once was considered a can't-miss money-maker.

In "late 1999 or early 2000,'' Mr. Stephens ran into Mr. Madigan. The speaker had just done the mayor a staggering courtesy, steering through the House a bill to allow a then-moribund casino license controlled by the Flynn family to be moved from the quiet Galena area to potentially far-more-lucrative Rosemont.