Casino companies worked long and hard to gain a foothold in Pennsylvania.
Few know that better than Downtown restaurant owner Nicholas Geanopulos. Over the past decade, the proprietor of Nicky's Grant Street Restaurant has earned as much as $2 million lobbying to bring gambling to Pennsylvania.
The extent of Geanopulos' role for the industry might surprise some of the lawyers, judges and politicians who eat breakfast or lunch at the popular diner in the Grant Building, just a block away from the Allegheny County Courthouse.
That the gambling industry turned to the charming Geanopulos, 60, of Mt. Lebanon is less surprising, according to friends and acquaintances.
"He knows everybody -- business people, political people -- just everybody," said Joseph DiSarro, chairman of the political science department at Washington & Jefferson College.
Geanopulos' role as a casino lobbyist emerged last year under oath in a deposition for a lawsuit filed in Erie County.
The lawsuit contends the Erie County Convention Center Authority broke a contract with Scott's Bayfront Development to build a convention center and hotel in Erie, and then tried to cut a better deal with MTR Gaming of Chester, W.Va.
MTR operates Mountaineer Casino Racetrack and Resort, between Chester and Weirton, W.Va. The complex advertises heavily in Western Pennsylvania as an entertainment destination for people seeking live entertainment, boxing, horse racing and gambling.
MTR built and owns Presque Isle Downs in Erie.
Geanopulos lists Presque Isle Downs as his sole client on his state-mandated lobbyist disclosure form. He is not a party to the lawsuit. Nor is he accused of any wrongdoing.
But Geanopulos' answers to wide-ranging questions provide insight into how the casino industry managed to bring slot machines to Pennsylvania.
In the 174-page deposition, Geanopulos described how he worked behind the scenes for more than a decade before lawmakers voted July 4, 2004, to bring the multibillion-dollar gambling industry to Pennsylvania.
He conducted business meetings in some of the region's exclusive restaurants, and rubbed shoulders with governors, mayors, casino executives and lawmakers.
In addition to running his restaurant, Geanopulos is active in the tightly knit Greek community, where he played in an ethnic band and identified himself on occasion as "the Greek Commissioner."
"I'm just a little guy," Geanopulos told the Tribune-Review in a brief telephone interview. He declined repeated requests to expand on that comment or discuss his lobbying.
Campaign finance records show Geanopulos contributed more than $50,000 during the past eight years to Democrats and Republicans, including Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-New York, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Philadelphia, Rep Jason Altmire, D-McCandless, and former Rep. Melissa Hart, R-Bradford Woods.
"Nicky is a class act, with a capital 'C'," said Chuck Ardo, Gov. Ed Rendell's spokesman. "We always enjoy running into him when we're in Pittsburgh because he has a contagiously good attitude and always brightens our day."
According to the deposition, Geanopulos parlayed such skills into a lobbying job after a chance meeting 15 years ago in a Las Vegas casino, where he struck a rapport with Charles O. Sack, a New Kensington native.
Then, Sack was an executive for Riviera Hotel and Casino; he became vice president of future ventures.
Sack hired Geanopulos with an eye toward docking a floating casino in Pittsburgh. At the time, the Legislature was debating the merits of riverboat gambling.
The Riviera initially paid Geanopulos $2,500 a month. As excitement about gambling grew, so did Geanopulos' paychecks. Sack said the casino company increased Geanopulos' compensation to $20,000 a month for a year.
In his deposition, Geanopulos estimated he earned $12,000 a month from MTR to lobby in Harrisburg, relying on a cell phone and an AOL e-mail account to conduct business. He estimated he earned $1.5 million to $2 million working for MTR.
Geanopulos said he introduced then-MTR chief executive Ted Arneault to then-Gov. Tom Ridge at a fundraiser at the Duquesne Club, Downtown, in late summer of 2001.
Arneault said Geanopulos seemed to know many state officials because of his restaurant.
"I think most of the work (Geanopulos) did was behind the scenes. He was a registered lobbyist, but it was a group effort. ... Nicky did his share because he had been involved in the industry for so long," Arneault said.
Photographs of some of Geanopulos' political contacts adorn the walls of his office in an alcove off the back dining room at Nicky's. The framed color photographs include Geanopulos with President George W. Bush, former President Bill Clinton, and Rendell and Ridge, among others.
"It takes a great deal of political talent to work a room like Nicky does. He is very low-key. He listens to people. He knows people. He understands the political apparatus. It's no small skill. It's almost a lost talent," said Washington & Jefferson's DiSarro.
In the early 1990s, Geanopulos counted then-state Rep. Frank Gigliotti, a Beechview Democrat, as a friend. In his deposition, Geanopulos said he met with Gigliotti on various occasions to push for legalized gambling. Gigliotti was known as the House Democratic Caucus' point man for riverboat gambling.
Gigliotti's role diminished in 2000 after a federal conviction for mail fraud and extortion in an unrelated case. He lost his seat and served a prison sentence.
Geanopulos said he spoke with Rendell about gambling many times. Rendell was interested in the Riviera's proposal to bring riverboat gambling to Pennsylvania while he was mayor of Philadelphia, Geanopulos said.
He knew John "Duffy" Conley, 44, of Robinson.
Geanopulos said that in the early 1990s, Conley persuaded him to ask Riviera to sign a management agreement with the Rincon River Oaks, an Indian casino near San Diego.
Riviera wouldn't bite. In the deposition, Geanopulos said federal authorities interviewed him when the government indicted Conley in a scheme to take over the Indian casino and fund it with illegal profits from his Pittsburgh video poker empire.
Conley was convicted in the money-laundering scheme in federal court and sentenced to nine years in prison. The scheme ensnared others, including former District Justice Anthony Clark of Natrona Heights, who drew a one-year prison term for his guilty plea.
Years later, Sack, who was deposed in the Erie lawsuit, said the Indian casino affair was a blow to his career.
Sack said Nevada gambling officials began to question his character because of his brief association with Conley, who was under indictment at the time.
Geanopulos was still working for Riviera in the late 1990s when he learned Pennsylvania lawmakers were discarding riverboat gambling in favor of racetrack slot parlors. He passed that information along to Riviera.
"I told them I thought we should change directions, because I didn't believe riverboat gaming was going to happen in Pennsylvania, but I felt that there had been rumors and rumblings of slots and the racetrack," Geanopulos said in his sworn statement.
Sack said he told Geanopulos to look into a defunct Erie horse-racing track. Geanopulos said he discovered a dormant track license there.
Riviera officials applied for the license, hoping to build a racetrack casino near the lakeshore. But the project stalled.
Into the vacuum stepped MTR, which eventually obtained the Erie license -- thanks, in part, to Geanopulos' efforts.
It's unclear what role Geanopulos might play for casinos down the line. But with a renewed push to expand gambling in Pennsylvania casinos to include table games, the skills and contacts that made Geanopulos an important figure for the industry for years, will remain valuable.
Additional Information:Nicholas 'Nicky' Geanopulos
Age: 60
Residence: Mt. Lebanon
Family: Wife Sophia; two grown children
Education: Oliver High School, 1966; attended Youngstown State University, 1966-69
Occupation: Owner, Nicky's Grant Street Restaurant; gambling lobbyist
