Boston Globe Pressures Massachusetts Regulators to Demand Wynn Resorts Fire CEO Matt Maddox

Posted on: April 9, 2019, 12:15h. 

Last updated on: April 9, 2019, 12:15h.

Devin O'Connor @CasinoorgDevinO Read More
Expertise: Asia Pacific Gaming, Commercial Gaming, Legislation, Politics.

Wynn Resorts CEO Matt Maddox’s days could be numbered, as pressure is mounting from the powerful Boston Globe’s editorial staff who are insisting that state regulators demand his removal in order for the casino company to retain its critical gaming license in Massachusetts.

Wynn Resorts Boston casino Matt Maddox
Matt Maddox might soon be searching for a new job if the Massachusetts Gaming Commission says Wynn Resorts cannot retain its casino license unless he’s terminated. (Image: David L. Ryan/Boston Globe)

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) held three days of hearings last week after receiving its agency’s Investigations and Enforcement Bureau’s findings into whether Wynn Resorts purposely withheld knowledge of its founder and former CEO’s alleged sexual misconduct while bidding for the Boston casino permit in 2013. The $2.6 billion Encore Boston Harbor is set to open in June.

Two editorial writers at the Globe say Maddox – long known as Steve Wynn’s protégé who assumed the chief executive role following the billionaire’s resignation in February 2018 – must go.

Steve Wynn is gone from Wynn Resorts. But not his ugly legacy. That lingers, as long as Matt Maddox, Wynn’s handpicked successor, runs Wynn Resorts,” Globe columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner Joan Vennochi opined this week.

Along with Maddox, Vennochi states Mr. Wynn’s ex-wife Elaine – the casino company’s largest individual shareholder – should be forced to sell her stake. Current Wynn board member Patricia Mulroy told the MGC last week that Mrs. Wynn is to blame for the company failing to inform Massachusetts regulators of the alleged sexual harassment committed by her husband.

Mr. Wynn continues to deny he ever acted inappropriately, and says he was the victim in a $7.5 million payment he made to a manicurist who claimed he raped her.

State Decisions

Vennochi isn’t alone in believing the MGC should require Wynn Resorts to part ways with Maddox.

Globe Deputy Managing Editor Larry Edelman writes in an op-ed, “I am torn on this, but I think CEO Matt Maddox should be required to step down. Before he succeeded Steve Wynn in February 2018, Maddox had been the company’s president since 2013 and Wynn’s right-hand man.”

Edelman says he finds “it hard to believe that Maddox, given his role as corporate consigliere, was completely in the dark” regarding his denial of Mr. Wynn’s alleged wrongdoings. He concludes, “If he didn’t know anything, he should have, and his resignation would cement the company’s claim that it has cleaned house.”

Wynn Meets With Trump

President Donald Trump was in Las Vegas over the weekend to speak at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s Spring Leadership Meeting. The commander-in-chief and former casino billionaire was welcomed on the McCarran International Airport tarmac by none other than Steve Wynn.

The president, nor Wynn, commented on what the two billionaires discussed. But there was a strong response from Trump critics as to his meeting with the disgraced casino tycoon.

Wow, what a surprise. Two corrupt millionaires hanging out together,” US Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and 2020 presidential hopeful tweeted seemingly unknowing their fortunes are in the billions. Forbes estimates Trump be worth $3.1 billion, and Wynn $3 billion.

PredictIt gives Warren little chance of winning the Democratic nomination for president. Her shares are currently trading at just six cents, far below frontrunners Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (22 cents) and former VP Joe Biden (20 cents).