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Expert: Massachusett tribe safe from mogul's woes

"Clyde Barrow, a gambling industry expert and director of the Center for Policy Analysis at University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, said the dire financial straits casino moguls Sol Kerzner and Len Wolman find themselves in with Twin River are self-imposed.

"...'At a minimum it should make the tribe look very closely at how reliable they are as financial backers, because they clearly misjudged the market in Rhode Island,' Barrow said.

"Kerzner, Wolman and their partners with BLB Inc. overpaid for the former dog track in Lincoln, R.I., and then put too much into the Twin River renovation project, Barrow said. Their overall investment of nearly $700 million is almost double what casino investor Richard Fields recently paid Donald Trump to buy an Atlantic City casino, for example.

"...But even bankruptcy won't stop the investors from working with the Mashpee tribe to bring a $1 billion Indian casino to Middleboro, he said. The tribe has an application pending to put 539 acres into federal trust for that purpose.

"Kerzner and Wolman's development deal with the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe is different. While the terms of the deal remain secret to all but a handful of people, the agreement is for Kerzner and Wolman to act as financial brokers for the Middleboro casino. In essence, they would find the capital to build the resort, and the tribe would manage it..."

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