Saipan casino operator Imperial Pacific International (IPI) has bought itself six more months in which to craft new excuses for not paying its bills.

On Thursday, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) Lottery Commission voted to allow IPI to defer for six months its required $20m payment to the Community Benefit Fund (CBF). The payment was (over)due October 1, meaning IPI will now have until April Fools’ Day – a little on the nose, guys – to come up with another reason for not paying.

For the record, the $20m annual CBF payment is a condition of IPI’s CNMI casino license, yet the company – which pays zero tax on its gaming revenue – appears to have made little effort to honor this modest commitment. Records are sketchy, but CNMI pols claim the company was already $37m in arrears before this latest payment came due.

IPI has been bleeding red ink for years now, as most VIP gamblers lost interest in traveling to IPI’s unfinished Imperial Palace resort, while the few who did show tended to skip town without paying their sizable credit markers. The pandemic-related closure of Imperial Palace in March merely poured gasoline on an already raging dumpster fire.