Embattled casino operator Imperial Pacific International (IPI) says it will fight to preserve and even extend its Saipan casino monopoly, even if it can’t honor the terms of its gaming license.

Last week, IPI surprised virtually no one by declaring that it couldn’t pay its annual $15.5m license fee to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), of which Saipan is a part. The news came just two weeks after IPI’s new CEO Donald Browne publicly assured members of the Commonwealth Casino Commission (CCC) that the company had “some funding that would satisfy that.”

Fast forward to Monday, and the Saipan Tribune posted an article in which IPI general counsel Michael Dotts suggested that the CNMI legislature might take this opportunity to license as many as four other casino operators, which he claimed could reduce IPI’s licensee fee by 80%, while also reducing IPI’s $3m annual payment to fund the CCC’s operations (which IPI also claims is currently beyond its fiscal capabilities).  

IPI’s latest in a long line of legal eagles obviously didn’t clear these views with the company, which rushed out a statement saying it was “not the case” that IPI was open to sharing its Saipan monopoly with any other casinos. IPI said it intends to “vigorously defend our exclusive rights to all gaming” activity on Saipan, including video poker machines and “e-gaming.”