Key players in Foxwoods Casino yet to be licensed

Three and a half years after authorizing the Foxwoods Casino project on the South Philadelphia waterfront, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board is only beginning the process of licensing one key player in the proposed gaming hall and determining the need to license a second.

State regulators have notified real estate developer Ronald Rubin, 79, that he must submit to an exhaustive financial and personal background investigation. They are assessing the role of New Jersey lawyer and entrepreneur Lewis Katz, 68, before deciding whether he, too, must apply.

The action comes even as lawyers for the gaming board build a case to revoke the $50 million license on the overall project. The Foxwoods group currently has no construction plan, no financing, and - with Las Vegas gambling tycoon Steve Wynn's sudden pullout in April - no operator.

Rubin and Katz have no direct financial stake in the project. Their families will control a third of the future profits through charitable trusts. In the last two years, however, the two men have been personally steering the struggling venture, according to sources who have dealt with them.

They promoted the ill-fated idea of relocating the casino from the Delaware River to Center City, recruited Wynn to rescue the project, and now are scrambling to find someone to replace him.

Pennsylvania gaming law requires the vetting of not only investors but also anyone who exercises control over a casino project. Rubin and Katz are not among the 37 individuals and business entities initially licensed by the state as participants in Foxwoods' ownership or management.

F. Warren Jacoby, a lawyer representing Foxwoods, said this week that "we're working with [the gaming board] to address any issues and come to an appropriate resolve."

Rubin created the Rubin Family Charitable Foundation, and Katz's daughter, Melissa Silver, 41, started the Silver Family Charitable Foundation. In 2005, the two trusts joined Comcast-Spectacor chairman Ed Snider in a partnership controlling 42 percent - the largest share - of the Foxwoods project. All pledged their profits to charity.

In November 2006, however, state legislators closed a loophole in the 2004 gaming law. Under the amendment, no trust may hold an interest in a casino unless the "grantor" - the person who created the trust - is licensed as a principal. The new rule applied to all applicants, no exceptions.