Dan Gilbert
Age: 47
Education: Bachelor's degree, Michigan State University; law degree, Wayne State University
Business: Chairman and founder of Quicken Loans Inc.; majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers
Home: Detroit area
Family: Married with five children
COLUMBUS — As a boy Dan Gilbert ran a pizza business from his mother’s kitchen, until it got shut down over local zoning and health permit issues.
He moved onto the next challenge, and at age 22 — as a first-year law student — he founded the company that became Quicken Loans Inc., the nation’s largest online retail mortgage lender.
These days he’s trying to win an NBA title as majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Gilbert, 47, is used to winning, but doing a record $25 billion in mortgages this year for Quicken Loans or even getting past the Celtics and Lakers might be easier than passing a casino issue in a state where voters have turned down gambling plans four times since 1990.
Issue 3 would allow casinos in Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo and Cincinnati. If it passes, Gilbert will develop the casinos in Cleveland and Cincinnati, while Penn National Gaming of Wyomissing, Pa., develops the other two.
Gilbert does more than write checks. On Wednesday, Oct. 28, he was in Columbus rallying union members to get their people to the polls on Tuesday.
“If we want to win this thing, we have to get the vote out,” Gilbert told a rally at the Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 189 Union Hall.
Gilbert’s heard the drumbeat of opposition, including that Issue 3 would create a monopoly that wouldn’t allow other companies to operate additional casinos. He said the real monopoly would have come from Gov. Ted Strickland’s now suspended plan to put video lottery terminals at Ohio’s racetracks.
“You want to talk about monopoly,” said Gilbert. “Here at least citizens vote on it.”
He said he wouldn’t stand in the way of a company that went before voters with another constitutional amendment to bring additional casinos to Ohio.
Gilbert likes his chances on Tuesday, in part because he said the backers did their homework and talked to voters about what went wrong in the past.
The people, he said, want first-class casinos and they want most of the casino tax dollars to go to schools and local governments, not the state’s general fund.
Gilbert, who is from the Detroit area, has spent nearly $17 million so far pushing Issue 3. He said the new Cleveland casino would cost between $500 million to $600 million while the price tag for Cincinnati would be from $400 million to $450 million.
The Cincinnati casino, a likely draw for gamblers from the Dayton area, would have to be top flight to compete with the $335 million Hollywood Casino along the Ohio River in Lawrenceburg, Ind., he said. That casino, coincidentally, is operated by Penn National.
Gilbert sees casinos as a key to creating vibrant, exciting downtowns that will appeal to bright, young people now fleeing Ohio.
At an anti-Issue 3 rally Wednesday, the drivers of pickups pulling horse trailers that circled the Statehouse don’t share that same vision.
“Vote no on 3,” “Save Ohio Horse Farms,” and “No Casinos for Bookies” were among the messages on dozens of trucks driven by horse and harness race industry supporters. They believe that if Issue 3 passes, thousands of jobs in Ohio’s racing industry could be lost.
The reference to bookies was an apparent shot at Gilbert, who has been fighting back against opponents who dug up his 1981 arrest for running a gambling operation while a student at Michigan State University. According to published reports, Gilbert was fined, put on probation, given community service and the charges were expunged.
He disputed a Jan. 6, 1982, report in The State News — the MSU student paper — that said the sports bookmaking operation handled $114,000 during the fall term.
“That’s a lie,” he said. “That’s just a lie.” He compared the operation to a “Wednesday night poker game.”
Michigan’s top law enforcement official, Attorney General Mike Cox, said there’s no lingering controversy.
“He has no criminal record in the state of Michigan,” said Cox. “His case was dismissed by a judge and his record was expunged.”
Cox said Gilbert, who plans to move his Quicken Loans operation from the suburbs to Detroit this spring, has been a positive force in the economically struggling state.
“We could use a few more like him in Michigan,” he said.
Contact this reporter at (614) 224-1608 or whershey@DaytonDailyNews.com.
Staff Writer Laura A. Bischoff contributed to this report.
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