Don H. Barden: Entrepreneur in gambling industry
on December 13th, 2007 at 8:05 am
For Casino Owner, Winning a License Was Not a Matter of Luck
By SEAN D. HAMILL
nytimes.com
PITTSBURGH — Don H. Barden could have scheduled the groundbreaking for his $450 million casino on his 64th birthday, Dec. 20, if he wanted. After all, he owns what is projected to be the most lucrative of Pennsylvania’s 14 slots casino licenses.
But already irritated by a year’s worth of delays, Mr. Barden, the country’s only African-American owner of a national gambling company, decided against that.
“I didn’t want to lose two weeks of the good weather” for construction, he said before the ceremony on Tuesday along the banks of the Ohio River, where his Majestic Star casino will rise.
It was a landmark day for Mr. Barden, a soft-spoken, sometimes prickly Horatio Alger figure who grew up poor with 12 siblings in the Detroit suburb of Inkster, the son of auto workers and the great-grandson of a freed slave. The new casino is projected to nearly double his Detroit company’s annual revenue, pushing it over $1 billion. (more…)
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