By 1974, thanks to the defeat of a referendum that would have restricted gambling in New Jersey, Resorts International started to become active in Atlantic City. We don't understand casinos.'Īpparently, they learned. 'I'm not having anything to do with the Freeport operators,' Mary Carter Paint chairman Jack Davis told Justice officials, according to the UPI report. Another version says the company was assisted with its casino license by mob kingpin Meyer Lansky, who ruled the casino business in nearby Freeport.Ī contrasting version from the UPI wire service describes Mary Carter Paint successfully resisting mobster influence by packing the company's executive ranks with former Justice Department officials.
One version says Mary Carter Paint initially teamed up in the Bahamas with Wallace Groves, a developer who was convicted of mail fraud in 1941. The lure of Paradise Island was not only the Bahamas acreage but its casino license.Īt this point, historical accounts of the company become contradictory _ and by some accounts tinged with notoriety. With the casino such a financial success, the company was renamed Resorts International and relocated to the Bahamas. By 1968, Mary Carter Paint not only dropped its paint business but also its name.