The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) is drafting legislation that would dissolve its gaming commission. The Pacific island group is looking at igaming as a next step.
On 4 February, CNMI representative Ralph N. Yumul told Marianas Variety a house committee is reviewing the 2014 statutes that legalised gaming and established the Commonwealth Casino Commission (CCC).
If enacted, the move would transfer the regulator’s enforcement powers to the lottery commission. At that point, Yamul said, the CCC “will not be in existence anymore”.
Committee members are also looking at online gaming and “marketing it out to the world”, Yamul added. The CCC “can’t do its job anymore”, Yamul added, “because it’s tied with the only casino licencee in the CNMI”.
And its experience with that licencee, Imperial Pacific International (IPI), has been nothing short of disastrous.
Ten years ago, IPI opened a temporary casino, called Best Sunshine Live, inside a shopping mall on Saipan, the largest island in the CNMI.
At first, it boasted Macau-level revenue. But the company’s permanent resort in Garapan, which opened with great fanfare in 2017, was an epic failure.
Here’s a timeline:
2014
Lawmakers establish the CCC to oversee the gaming industry in the CNMI. As stated in the legislation, “the entire commonwealth should benefit from well-regulated casino gambling in these challenging economic times. A well-regulated casino industry … would increase tourism, stimulate the economy and provide needed government revenues”.
In the same year, the CNMI Lottery Commission grants an exclusive gaming licence to Hong Kong-listed IPI.
2015
Best Sunshine Live opens in the T-Galleria shopping mall. It makes headlines by rivalling even Macau for VIP turnover. Then-CEO Mark Brown tells Global Gaming Business, “Our rolling-chip program shocked people by doing $1.6 billion (£1.28 billion/€1.5 billion) in one month…. Every month it’s continued to grow. The VIPs love the island and what we do for them”.
Meanwhile, IPI breaks ground on a lavish permanent resort in Garapan with marble floors, gilded towers, two 20-ton Swarovski dragon sculptures and a 140,000-square-foot casino floor.
But construction is interrupted by Typhoon Soudelor, a “major disaster” in the CNMI, according to the US Federal Emergency Management Agency. (Since World War II, the Western Pacific island group has been a US territory.)
2017
The permanent resort opens, and Best Sunshine closes. Originally called Grand Mariana, and later Imperial Pacific Palace, the property is described by visitors as “impressive, amazing and beautiful”. But construction is still incomplete. (Spoiler alert: it will never be finished).
2018
Super-Typhoon Yutu, a Category 5 storm packing 180mph winds, causes catastrophic destruction in the CNMI — and more construction delays for IPI. CEOs come and go.
2019
Three IPI executives are indicted on federal criminal charges, including racketeering and money laundering. According to the US Department of Justice, they also engaged in unlawful employment practices, hiring hundreds of illegal, unskilled workers to build the Saipan resort.
According to Forbes, in its first four years, IPI accumulated $2 billion in player debt and wrote off two-thirds of it.
2020
Imperial Pacific Palace closes in March, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Revenue plummets to $3.1 million from the high of $412 million reached in 2018.
2021
The CCC files complaints against IPI for failing to pay an annual $15.5 million licence fee and a $3.1 million regulatory fee in 2020; failing to contribute $20 million to the community benefit fund in 2018 and 2019; failing to maintain a minimum $2 billion capital requirement; and failing to pay its vendors. CCC suspends IPI’s license.
2022
Closed for two years, Imperial Pacific Palace auctions assets, including gaming equipment and the Swarovski dragons, to pay its bill.
The Pacific Island Times slams the operator for the “contrived grandeur” of Imperial Pacific Palace, now “replaced by desolation”. It notes that the unfinished resort, exposed to the elements, is becoming “a rust bucket”.
IPI says the pandemic was a force majeure that absolved it of any obligation to pay its debts. Hindered its ability to meet its obligations, it further claims that the CCC has violated its constitutional rights by seeking to revoke its casino licence.
2024
Imperial Pacific Palace is still shuttered. An IPI attorney concedes it has been “open to the elements, and is currently in poor condition”. Even so, the company attempts to sell the property, which could take up to $150 million to complete.
Marianas Variety reports that the CCC, which has shut down its office and laid off more than 50 employees, is “in desperate need of money”. IPI, meanwhile, still owes more than $160 million to the government and various creditors.
2025
CCC chair Edward C. Deleon Guerrero and commissioner Mario Taitano have no comment on the possible dissolution of the regulator.
Yamul says most CNMI residents no longer want a brick-and-mortar casino.
“So we’re looking at internet gaming”, he says, including sports betting. Lawmakers plan to model the new industry on successful igaming operations in US states.
