Engelstad Arena in North Dakota has new owner - 2004-01-02
A charitable corporation managed by friends and associates of late Las Vegas casino entrepreneur and University of North Dakota benefactor Ralph Engelstad is the new owner of a $100 million-plus hockey arena Engelstad opened here.

Five lawyers and officials in North Dakota and Nevada worked through the Christmas holiday to complete the deal. Some 50 documents totaling more than 200 pages had to be faxed and transferred between Grand Forks and Las Vegas, where Engelstad built his fortune in the construction and casino businesses.
Read the full story at Las Vegas Sun

Lessons from Connecticut's Indian casinos - 2004-01-02
The tale of how one Indian tribe - almost extinguished by early American settlers - regrouped and built a mega-casino in Connecticut will be told in Sonoma on Tuesday evening by author Brett Fromson.

In the first stop in a two-week California tour, Fromson will read from his book "Hitting the Jackpot," which accounts the rebirth of the Mashantucket Pequot into a highly successful gaming tribe.

Fromson's journey into the tribe's evolution began with an article he wrote while a staff writer for the Washington Post in 1998. Raised in Connecticut under blue laws - which strictly limited both gaming and alcohol sales - he was intrigued by the explosion of the Foxwoods casino.
Read the full story at Sonoma Index-Tribune