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Two years ago, Senate leader Phil Berger sought to pass legislation to bring casinos to North Carolina, including one to his home county to counter a gambling complex opening just across the border in Danville, Virginia.

That was big news. North Carolina had banned casinos, except for those U.S. law allows on land owned by Native American tribes, for more than two centuries.

Draft legislation he and House Speaker Tim Moore discussed with reporters would have opened three lower-income counties to casinos. Three favored counties — Anson, Nash and Berger’s home of Rockingham — were each roughly an hour’s drive from one of the state’s three biggest population centers. Officials in all three were eager for economic growth.

But before any talk of legislation became public, a major casino developer quietly cultivated local government support in all three counties. It acquired options to buy land. If the legislation had passed, The Cordish Companies of Baltimore could have had a head start over any competitor.

The casino push failed. But moves on its behalf show how behind-the-scenes players help advance political and corporate agendas without the public’s knowledge.

It’s long been known that Cordish hired top North Carolina lobbyists and spread campaign funds among Republican lawmakers as it sought to improve its chances of building casinos here. But much was not made public. County officials took an overnight trip to a Cordish casino, for one, with whoever paid the bill not known. And a Cordish lobbyist targeted specific lawmakers considered key swing votes.

Also not publicly disclosed: Cordish had help from a former top aide to Berger — Jim Blaine, a co-founder of The Differentiators, a fast-growing consulting firm that has worked with dozens of powerful political and business clients.

Blaine met with Anson County officials at a private meeting at a sports shooting business in early 2023 to inform them about an economic development project that could turn the county’s fortunes around, said Anson County Manager Len Sossamon in an interview. That was roughly four months before lawmakers confirmed legislation was being drafted.

“The initial discussion was just that, would we be interested in, you know, a casino entertainment district,” Sossamon said.

Cordish makes NC connections

Cordish has been in real estate development since its founding in 1910. It expanded into gambling in 1981, and now has casinos in Florida, Pennsylvania and near its Baltimore headquarters.

Cordish came out a winner after Virginia lawmakers in 2020 began approving legislation that allows localities to hold referendums on casinos. The company broke ground on one in March in Petersburg.

The company connected with North Carolina officials as early as 2021, lobbying reports show. In September that year it hired then Gov. Roy Cooper’s former Commerce Secretary Tony Copeland and Drew Moretz, a former UNC System vice president.

The following year, it was Copeland who first approached Berger about “pursuing an economic development opportunity through authorizing commercial casinos and surrounding tourism districts in rural areas,” the state Senate leader said in a written statement released Wednesday.

By May 2022, the company had begun land negotiations in Nash County, according to one property owner. It had secured options in Nash and Rockingham counties by the time draft legislation emerged. An option deal was struck in Anson in 2023.

In the fall of 2022, Cordish had begun reaching out to Rocky Mount officials with its casino plans, and asked them not to make them public, WRAL was first to report and The N&O confirmed with city councilman Lige Daughtridge.

It wasn’t until April 12, 2023, that the media began reporting Republican lawmakers were showing an interest in allowing casinos. After that, much of the reporting focused on plans for Rockingham and Nash counties, places where visible community opposition emerged.

In Anson, the situation was a little different. Opposition wasn’t as loud, and details on what Cordish was pitching stayed behind closed doors. Records obtained by lawyers bringing a casino-linked defamation suit, however, reveal moves Cordish and its advocates made there. The News & Observer obtained those records from Anson County in a public records request.

Despite its proximity to Charlotte, the state’s largest city, Anson County has struggled to keep residents and businesses. It has lost more than 15% of its residents since 2010, the U.S. Census reports, and its population is now roughly 22,500. Nash and Rockingham counties each have more than 90,000 residents.

Just as the pandemic hit, Anson County residents learned it didn’t have enough business to keep open its only Walmart, located on the outskirts of Wadesboro, the county seat.

A new casino and conference center that a Cordish representative said it planned to invest $500 million into would have brought in roughly $20 million in tax revenue annually, the county manager estimated. That’s equal to a third of the county’s $60 million annual budget.

“It would have been awesome,” Sossamon said in an April interview in his Wadesboro office. “I wouldn’t have to go to the legislature to ask for money to build projects.”

Priming the pump for NC casinos

Weeks before Sossamon said he was first told about a possible Cordish casino project for Anson, The Differentiators conducted a poll of state voters that produced supportive findings about expanding legal gaming in North Carolina.

The results told lawmakers that their support for expanded legal gambling might win votes come election time if the expansion was cast in specific ways.

“Gaming expansion is not a deciding issue for voters,” its report about the poll said. “But the things that could be done with a large new revenue source — cutting taxes, expanding popular programs, or funding local infrastructure — can be deciding issues for voters.”

Greater Carolina, a Republican-affiliated nonprofit supportive of gaming here, posted the poll on its website, along with a market analysis dated March 22, 2023, that said casinos in Anson, Nash and Rockingham counties could bring in a combined $1.7 billion in annual revenue.

Blaine, The Differentiators co-founder, helped introduce Sossamon and county Commissioner Jamie Caudle to Cordish’s casino plans at a private meeting in early 2023, both county officials told The N&O in interviews. Zach Almond, a lobbyist registered to represent Cordish in North Carolina, invited them to the meeting at the sports-shooting business.

Almond is a partner in a lobbying firm called Almond Miner Government Relations, which Cordish says it hired in its lobbying reports. The Differentiators has called Almond a member of its team too. Its website from 2021 to 2024 said he focused on “down-ballot races below the legislative level” with the consulting firm.

Sossamon and Caudle said they could not recall the date of the meeting with Almond and Blaine, but both said it happened before Almond arranged for Anson County officials and others to tour Cordish’s casino near Baltimore. Correspondence shows Almond was working on that trip in late March 2023.

Correspondence between Almond, Cordish and Anson officials shows Blaine was also a go-to for information about casino legislation and was in the loop on Cordish’s public relations moves.

When Sossamon wanted to know what language about local zoning rules was included in draft legislation allowing casinos, Almond directed him to Blaine. When Cordish made a media splash with $21 million in grants in the Pittsburgh area, a company executive emailed the news to Almond and Blaine.

Berger did not respond to a request at the end of April for an interview for this story. He no longer supports legalizing casinos in North Carolina, his statement released Wednesday said. It stressed that Berger’s relationship with Blaine “did not play a role in my decision-making process” on casinos.

Cordish Companies didn’t respond to interview requests, nor did Blaine. Almond declined to comment due to the defamation lawsuit, his lobbying firm partner said.

A trip to Anne Arundel County

Talk first surfaced publicly about possible legislation to authorize casinos when then-Rep. Jason Saine, a Lincolnton Republican, was quoted in a WUNC news report on April 12, 2023. Then a chief budget writer, Saine didn’t mention specific counties but told WRAL two days later that legislators were considering allowing them in Eastern North Carolina. That report also referenced the market analysis on Greater Carolina’s website.

That day, on April 14, Almond shepherded four Anson county officials and other community leaders in two cars from Wadesboro to Cordish’s Baltimore-area casino. That was three months before Berger and Moore confirmed they were considering casino legislation.

Sossamon, as well as Anson County commissioners Caudle and Robert Mims, attended. Each said they don’t know who paid for the overnight trip. Others invited included Anson Register of Deeds Greg Eudy; Lynn Clodfelter, a Republican district attorney for neighboring Montgomery and Stanly counties; David Griffin, a local construction company owner; and Uhwarrie Bank CEO Roger Dick, county records show.

Democratic county Commissioner Lawrence Gatewood said a fellow commissioner invited him on the trip, but he did not go because of his caution over “taking trips at someone else’s expense.”

Reece Saunders, Anson County’s Democratic district attorney at the time, knew nothing about the trip, he said.

The group left early that Friday morning and stopped at Lemaire, an upscale restaurant in Richmond, Virginia, for lunch, an itinerary in the county records shows. They arrived at Cordish’s Live! Casino & Hotel, which claims the largest gaming floor in the country with more than 200 table games, by mid-afternoon.

Joseph Weinberg, Cordish’s gaming CEO, gave a tour that was followed by cocktails and dinner at Live!’s The Prime Rib restaurant at the casino, the itinerary says. They were to drive home the next day.

Anson County commissioner meeting minutes from 2023 make no mention of the trip to Cordish’s Baltimore property.

Gatewood said he was filled in about Cordish’s interest in building a casino in Anson County three days after the Baltimore trip, at a second meeting Cordish representatives held at the sport shooting business, he said.

At a May 18, 2023, meeting of the county’s Economic Development Corporation, county Commissioner Caudle talked about the casino in closed session, minutes show. But the casino plans were not discussed in county meetings open to the public, minutes show.

Also in 2023, Cordish secured “multi-year” options to buy land in the western part of the county along U.S. 74, said Don Scarborough, a local real-estate agent who handled them. He did not provide a date.

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