With a ballot proposal to repeal the entire Massachusetts casino law still hanging over the already approved MGM Resorts International casino in Springfield, the company is making moves to regain its gaming license in the changing Atlantic City market in New Jersey.

MGM and the investment arm of casino mogul Kirk Kerkorian have shelled out $225,000 for a settlement payment to the New Jersey Casino Control Commission to put to bed claims that MGM allowed Los Angeles attorney Terry Christensen, a former board member, to continue in that capacity following his 2008 conviction.

"This was simply an administrative means of closing a file on a previously resolved matter from a few years ago in advance of our licensing hearing next month," an MGM spokesman told Bloomberg.com in an emailed statement.

In 2009, MGM agreed to sell its 50 percent ownership of the Borgata Casino Hotel and Spa in Atlantic City after New Jersey gaming investigators recommended that Pansy Ho, the company's partner in the Macau, China venture, be found unsuitable over concerns she was a front for her father Stanley Ho, who allegedly has ties to organized crime in that country. In Massachusetts, the gaming commission reviewed such claims and concluded that MGM was considered suitable as investigators here felt Pansy Ho was not involved in the daily operations of MGM Macau and is not involved in gaming.

While MGM placed its holdings in the Borgata casino into a trust while pursuing a sale, such a sale never happened, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal. The news organization also reports that MGM also still owns land next to the Borgata hotel where it once planned to build a multi-million dollar resort.

But the entertainment company's foray back into Atlantic City comes at a time when casinos in what was once heralded as the Las Vegas of the East Coast is going through a period of transition. Over the next month with the closure of the Revel Casino Hotel, the Showboat Atlantic City Hotel and Casino and Trump Plaza, more than 6,000 people are expected to lose their jobs. Plus the closures leave huge, vacant properties along the strip in a city that relies on casinos as a draw for valuable tourism dollars.

Saturation in the Northeast U.S. casino gaming market has led to a decrease in profits at existing casinos, as is the case in Connecticut and Delaware, and caused some casino companies to pull the plug on planned expansions. Penn National Gaming, which is building a slots parlor in Plainville, Mass., cancelled plans to pursue a license for a South Philadelphia casino citing concerns over saturation of the market.

In Massachusetts, where MGM is hoping to rake in a more than $500 million annual profit within three years of opening, the company has said the diversity of its planned entertainment offerings at the Springfield site in relation to the estimated $800 million project will make it a long-lasting draw, despite casinos popping up in other parts of the region.

Casino opponents, however, have said the company's promises are oversold, and pointed to Atlantic City as a cautionary tale.

In September, MGM will appear in front of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission with the hopes of getting back into the Atlantic City market.

In November, the voters of Massachusetts will decide what will become of the state's 2011 casino law which initially brought the company to the commonwealth in the first place. But at least one of the candidates for governor, Republican Charlie Baker, has said if he wins and the casino law is struck down, he will seek a legislative solution to allow the MGM Springfield project to proceed.

---