'We are pleased that the SJC affirmed the dismissal of the intentional interference with a contract claim and will address the remaining claim through appropriate legal proceedings,' Gaming Commission spokesman Tom Mills said Monday.įBT Everett Realty bought the land in question for approximately $8 million in 2009, before casino gaming was legal in Massachusetts. The commission said Monday it is reviewing the latest SJC opinion.

The commission's inaugural chairman, Stephen Crosby, was at the center of accusations of bias in the process that resulted in Wynn Resorts securing the Boston-area casino license and he resigned in 2018 amid more cries of bias as the commission prepared to release its investigation into Wynn Resorts' handling of sexual misconduct allegations against Steve Wynn.

Charlie Baker toured the Everett casino Wednesday as the state shifts from mass vaccination sites to smaller community-based operations like the one at Encore.įor years, the Gaming Commission has been hounded by various legal issues around the Everett land, the Boston-area licensing process and Wynn Resorts. 'Whether the commission directed such a compelled transfer of property, or merely accepted it as a cure to its concerns about undisclosed criminal ownership interests at FBT, cannot be decided without further discovery,' he wrote. Justice Scott Kafker wrote in an opinion released Monday that a lower court judge made an error by dismissing all of FBT's lawsuit last summer (the SJC affirmed the lower court's decision to dismiss a claim that the commission had interfered with a contract) and sent the case back to the Superior Court for a fresh round of fact-finding.

FBT alleges that the Gaming Commission, concerned about the possibility that someone with ties to organized crime stood to benefit from FBT's sale, improperly coerced Wynn Resorts into reducing the purchase price of FBT's Everett land by threatening to otherwise disadvantage Wynn's license application. Wynn got the lucrative Boston-area casino license, but the Everett property ultimately sold for $35 million. The actions of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission almost a decade ago could be put under a new microscope after the Supreme Judicial Court ruled Monday that a lower court should look more closely at the 'highly unusual character of the commission's actions' related to the award of a casino license to Wynn Resorts and the casino company's purchase of land in Everett.įBT Everett Realty agreed in 2012 to sell the land on which Encore Boston Harbor now sits to Wynn Resorts for $75 million if the casino company secured a state casino license.

Encore casino open today