Major announcements on the rest of the locations in Pennsylvania.  The biggest news was in Pittsburgh where Don Barden beat two much bigger competitors: the powerful Cleveland-based Forest City that was teamed with Harrah's on one plan and the Isle of Capri deal tied to a new NHL arena that involved Columbus's Nationwide Insurance in their development.

In Philadelphia, Don Trump was one of the big losers.

A winner in Philadelphia was Pequots from Connecticut.  Another Connecticut Tribe owns and has already opened a racetrack casino in this neighborhing  state.  Two of the fourteen Pennsylvania locations will be owned and operated by successful Tribes that have pioneered in developing two of the largest gaming resorts in the world at Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun in Connecticut.  Mountaineer that owns Scioto Downs in Columbus, will open in a few weeks at their Erie, Pa., track slots location that expects to draw heavily from NE Ohio.


Boston Globe/AP, Breaking Webstory, Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Mashantucket Pequots get Pennsylvania slots license
By Marc Levy, Associated Press Writer  |  December 20, 2006

HARRISBURG, Pa. --State gambling regulators on Wednesday awarded five slots licenses for casino projects in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Bethlehem and the Pocono Mountains, while rejecting bids that included a proposal for a slots parlor near the historic Gettysburg battlefield.

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board awarded two Philadelphia licenses to groups led by billionaire developer Neil G. Bluhm and by Connecticut-based Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, which runs Foxwoods Resort Casino. In
Pittsburgh, the board awarded a license to Detroit-based casino developer Don H. Barden.

Las Vegas-based casino operator Las Vegas Sands Corp. won a license for a Bethlehem casino and businessman Louis A. DeNaples won one for a Pocono Mountain resort.

The gaming board can award as many as 11 permanent slots licenses, each allowing as many as 5,000 machines. Six licenses are earmarked for the state's horse-racing tracks, while 13 applicants competed for the remaining five stand-alone licenses.

Among the applications the board rejected were:
-- a hotly contested proposal by a group led by Connecticut-based Silver Point Capital LP for a casino near the Gettysburg battlefield;
-- an application by Donald Trump's Atlantic City, N.J.-based casino company for a casino in Philadelphia;
-- a proposal by St. Louis-based casino operator Isle of Capri Casinos Inc. for a casino in Pittsburgh; Isle of Capri had promised to build a new $290 million arena for the Pittsburgh Penguins without using taxpayer money.

So far, two racetracks -- Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs and Philadelphia Park -- already have opened slots parlors under conditional licenses, while racetracks in Chester and near Erie are expected to open slots parlors in the next two months.

Gov. Ed Rendell rejuvenated a 25-year drive to legalize casino-style gambling in Pennsylvania by promising that slots revenue would help reduce property taxes and revive the state's declining horse-racing industry. The law passed in 2004 authorized up to 61,000 slot machines at 14 sites.


Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Breaking Webstory, Wednesday, December 20, 2006
PITG wins slots casino license for North Side
By Tracie Mauriello and Mark Belko, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

HARRISBURG -- The state Gaming Control Board today approved PITG Gaming Majestic Star to receive Pittsburgh's stand-alone casino license.
 
In unanimously approving PITG, the board rejected proposals from Isle of Capri, which wanted to build a parlor in the Hill District, and Forest City Enterprises, which set its sights on Station Square.

Mr. Barden held hands with his wife Bella as the vote was taken and shed tears when he knew he had won.

"My heart skipped several beats. It was an exhilarating, incredible feeling."

Mr. Barden said he plans to talk with Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato today to discuss support for a new arena, which is being sought by the Penguins. Local officials had pressed all three slots applicants for commitments to fund an arena, but Isle of Capri had the most definitive pledge of support.

Mr. Barden has already agreed to the so-called Plan B pushed by Gov. Ed Rendell. That means he has pledged $7.5 million per year for 30 years from casino revenue toward an arena.

Mr. Barden said he is not planning a temporary casino. Instead he plans to open the permanent facility with at least 3,000 machines in March 2008. Eventually he hopes to offer 5,000 machines.

He said the casino would be "first class" and very similar to Las Vegas.

He also noted that he would proceed on his pledge to help redevelop parts of the Hill District.

Mr. Barden also became teary eyed when he talked about Johnnie Bettis, father of former Steelers star Jerome Bettis. Mr. Barden knew the Bettis family from Detroit and brought them into his investment group.
Johnnie Bettis recently died.

"I think he had a little to do with the success today," Mr. Barden said.

Michelle Sherman, chief financial officer for Barden Cos., also burst into tears of joy when the vote was taken. "Oh my God, I'm crying, oh my God. I'm overwhelmed. Mr. Barden is the consummate visionary and entrepreneur. This is something he deserved."

Mr. Barden owns five other casinos; this will be the largest.

"This changes the whole direction of our company. We're going to be bigger, stronger," she said.

Brian Ratner, Forest City executive vice president of East Coast development, said, "We had a lot of plans for that (Station Square) site. I don't know what we're going to do now. I don't know what their reasoning was.

"All we can do today is congratulate Don Barden. It's hard to know what the board's rationale was."

Pittsburgh Council President Doug Shields said after the vote that the North Side appears to be the best physical location.

"The North Side site, in my mind, offers probably the best access given the highway infrastructure available," Mr. Shields said. He also applauded the riverfront access of the casino and said it could generate development of the Manchester neighborhood.

But Mr. Shields noted that the vote leaves open the question of the future of the Penguins in Pittsburgh. Isle of Capri had an agreement with the Penguins to provide money for an arena, which the team has been seeking to replace Mellon Arena.

"We will begin to sit down and assess what we need to do in regards to a public auditorium, both the city and the county," Mr. Shields said.

The Penguins ownership group did not issue an immediate statement and planned to meet on the decision this afternoon.

City Councilwoman Tonya Payne, in whose district the casino will sit, said she was "totally shocked" by the decision. An ardent supporter of the Isle of Capri's bid, she nonetheless welcomed the news that the facility would be on the North Side. "This is good news for the City of Pittsburgh, period. This is revenue we get without any overhead."

She said the city should make sure that Mr. Barden's group goes through with the development of the Hill District.

Before the Pittsburgh vote, the board approved HSP Gaming and Philadelphia Entertainment and Development for the two available licenses in that area. Both Philly winners are riverfront developments estimated at at least $550 million.

The board also awarded the two licenses available outside the big cities to the Las Vegas Sands for Bethlehem and Louis DeNaples for Pocono Mountain.

The board chose those over a controversial proposal to locate a casino near Gettysburg National Battlefield.


Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Breaking Webstory, Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Barden's group slipped past the bigger players to win
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
By Bill Toland, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Initially viewed as the long shot in this three-horse race, Detroit businessman Don Barden emerged from the pack today by winning Pittsburgh's lone casino license and earning the rights to build a slots parlor on the North Shore.

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board voted in Harrisburg today in favor of Mr. Barden's PITG Gaming, the local incarnation of his Majestic Star casino chain, which bested its two better-known competitors: Isle of Capri Casinos, which had teamed with the Pittsburgh Penguins to propose a casino and new arena in the Lower Hill, and Harrah's Entertainment, which partnered with Cleveland's Forest City Enterprises on a Station Square casino plan.

Harrah's had the biggest industry name, and Isle of Capri was the choice of thousands of sports fans because of its ties to the hockey franchise, but in the end it was Mr. Barden who had the best proposal, as judged by the gaming board.
  
While Harrah's and Isle of Capri made their splashes late last year, Mr. Barden waited until April of this year to fully unveil his plan, doing so in front of the gaming board. He recruited retired Pittsburgh Steeler Jerome Bettis to front the proposal, and announced that his parents, Johnnie and Gladys Bettis, neighbors to Mr. Barden, would be investors in the casino, as would Motown singer Smokey Robinson. (Johnnie Bettis has since died).

At the same meeting, Mr. Barden also pledged $7.5 million a year for 30 years to support construction of a new arena for the Penguins, taking away some of the leverage that had been held by Isle of Capri to that point. Also in counterpoint to the Isle of Capri plan, he offered $350 million for investment in the Lower Hill District.

PITG won't build a temporary casino, as Isle of Capri and Harrah's would have, instead opting to concentrate full bore on the permanent, $450 million facility between the Carnegie Science Center and the West End Bridge. Plans call for the 400,000 square-foot casino to house a cylindrical glass atrium, four restaurants, three lounges, bars, shops and, of course, rows and rows of slot machines. Construction should take 14 months, meaning it will be open by spring 2008, although the gaming board itself has questioned that ambitious timetable.

Mr. Barden's plan was more palatable on a number of fronts than either the Hill or Station Square casino proposals. The traffic jams that may have come along with the Station Square casino won't be as much of a problem on the North Shore, except before and after Pirates and Steelers games. And by offering to spend development money on the Lower Hill, without putting a casino there, Mr. Barden extinguished the main complaint of Isle of Capri opponents -- that a casino so close to the Hill would spell disaster for the neighborhood and its residents.

Still, Mr. Barden had two high-profile opponents, namely the Steelers and the Pirates, neither of which favored the casino or wanted it to interfere with their own North Shore development plans.

But his legislative allies -- namely, Rep. Jake Wheatley and presumptive House Speaker H. William DeWeese -- may have been enough to offset the concerns of the two sports franchises. Both were guests of Mr. Barden at Super Bowl XL, which was played in Detroit in February. And Mr. Barden, who is black, is also the only minority applicant in the state, which was considered an advantage because the state wanted to include minority-owned businesses in its new casino enterprise.

Even though Mr. Barden has committed $7.5 million a year to a new arena, the issue isn't exactly settled. The Pittsburgh Penguins hockey franchise had hitched its wagon to Isle of Capri and its promise of $290 million in arena funding. Now the franchise, if it is to stay in Pittsburgh, will have to negotiate the terms of a "Plan B" financing arrangement. Jim Balsillie, the Canadian businessman who agreed to buy the

Penguins then backed out at the last minute, seemed agreeable to "Plan B," but new owners, whoever they are, might not be as eager to contribute their own funds to a new arena.

The winner: The Majestic Star is proposed as a $450 million facility between the Carnegie Science Center and the West End Bridge.
Details: Plans call for the 400,000 square-foot casino to house a cylindrical glass atrium, four restaurants, three lounges, bars, shops and, of course, rows and rows of slot machines.
Work: Construction should take 14 months, meaning it will be open by spring 2008