And now Michael J. Malik and Marian Ilitch (Gateway Casino Resorts) are behind a plan to create half a million square foot casino resort at New York's Aqueduct race track.
Michael Malik and Herb Strather were behind the statewide ballot measure, Proposal E, that got gambling legalized in Detroit – their partners orchestrated contributions of more than $5 million in the last days of the campaign for an advertising blitz.Malik and Strather along with Marian Ilitch, Tom Celani and about 100 other Detroit business and community leaders formed Atwater Casino Group and immediately following the narrow passage of the 1996 ballot measure, announced a partnership with Circus Circus that would be called Detroit Entertainment LLC.
Circus Circus repaid the $5 million Atwater Casino Group members had contributed to the Proposal E campaign. Detroit Entertainment is the parent of MotorCity Casino; owned 100% by Marian Ilitch since April 2005.
Prior to opening MotorCity Casino in 1999, the Michigan Gaming Control Board required the individual owners of the casino to go through rigorous background checks and be granted gaming licenses. Malik and Strather were among a handful of owners from Detroit’s three commercial casinos who were denied licenses following the background checks. Both were forced to sell any share they had in the venture before the Casino could open. So, Strather’s shares in MotorCity Casino were assumed by Circus Circus and Malik’s by Marian Ilitch.
Fast forward a couple of years…
Strather. Bankrolling Federal Recognition. Cape Cod Casino.
Strather had developed a partnership with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe of Massachusetts and was bankrolling their effort to gain federal recognition. In exchange, Strather has said he would be given a portion of the development rights on a Wampanoag casino – to be built in Middleborough on Cape Cod.
As with the commercial casinos in Detroit, the management of Indian casinos must stand up to the scrutiny of background checks and be licensed by the National Indian Gaming Commission. The Mashpee tribe reports it never intended for Strather to hold the gaming license; his role was to front entitlement and predevelopment phase.
Shortly after the Department of Interior granted federal recognition to the Mashpee this past Spring, it was announced that gambling tycoons Sol Kerzner and Len Wolman (Mohegan Sun) had signed on as lead investors of a Mashpee casino resort and Strather has faded into the background. If approved, the Mashpee casino resort in Middleborough would be the first Indian casino in Massachusetts and the only casino on Cape Cod.
Malik. Bankrolling Federal Recognition. Long Island Casino.
Among other projects, Malik (and Ilitch) have partnered with the Shinnecock Indian Nation of New York and have been bankrolling the tribe’s federal recognition efforts. In exchange, Malik (and Ilitch) would be given development rights on a Shinnecock casino resort to be built in the posh Hamptons resort area on Long Island.
Given Malik’s inability to be licensed in Michigan, much like Strather’s circumstances with the Wampanoag, the Shinnecock must have no intentions on Malik being licensed for their casino. As Kerzner and Wolman were to Strather, it’s most likely that Marian Ilitch would step in and apply for the license and contract approvals to manage any future Shinnecock Indian Nation Hamptons casinos resort on Long Island.
The Malik/Strather MotorCity Casino Model: turn-key or turn-down?
The model followed with the Mashpee and Shinnecock was developed by Malik and Strather first developed when they were rejected for Michigan gaming licenses. They've attempted to turn lemons into lemonaide.
Given that Marian Ilitch is publicly acknowledged as Malik’s partner on a venture in Barstow, California, Malik’s the entitlement and pre-development model that worked for MotorCity Casino circumstances and replicated for the Mashpee and Shinnecock situations would seem to apply for Barstow as well.
Once the entitlement and pre-development efforts are complete for Barstow, an Ilitch back-casino managment company would step in and Malik would appear to fade into the background as to avoid any licensing requirement; or perhaps both Malik and Ilitch would step aside for Vegas interests as they did originally for MotorCity Casino.
And a similar model would appear to hold true for Malik’s 15 year quest to site an off-reservation casino for the Bay Mills Indian Community in Port Huron, Michigan.
Strather’s close to achieving success using the MotorCity Casino turn-key model for fronting the financing and management of entitlement and predevelopment; Malik has yet to prove it’s going to be successful for his casino proposals in New York, Michigan and California. Absent Tom Celani, Malik and Ilitch have yet to win entitlement and develop any casino resort.
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originally posted 9.01.07
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