Just one day after the CEO of MGM Resorts told Atlanta business leaders that casino gambling in Georgia would be a financial windfall for the state, another major player has joined the fray.
Wynn Resorts Development of Las Vegas has hired the Dentons law firm as its lobbying team head of the 2017 legislative session. The company is owned by Steve Wynn and has casinos in Vegas and the Macau region of China and is building a casino resort outside Boston.
Wynn and Dentons declined to comment but Dentons lobbyists Jeff Hamling, Ed Lindsey, Amy Odom and Ben Vinson have all registered to represent Wynn at the state and local level.
The development comes after MGM chief Jim Murren spoke to Rotary Club of Atlanta on Monday and weeks after a study by an education coalition, backed in part by gambling interests, found that the HOPE scholarship program could face financial challenges in the years ahead despite a record $1 billion pumped into education programs last fiscal year.
The pitch to lawmakers again next year will be that casinos, when taxed by the state, will keep HOPE solvent.
Legislators declined to swing at a similar pitch this year.
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