by Paul Ramlow, USTA Internet News Manager

Columbus, OH — The owner of Monticello Casino & Raceway has been ordered to pay more than $65 million to its bondholders.

According to a story in the Middletown (N.Y.) Times Herald-Record, owner Empire Resorts filed a lawsuit this past August in state Supreme Court in Monticello, attempting to stop its major bondholders from calling in notes. However, Supreme Court Judge Robert Sackett ruled on March 31 that the company must pay up.

Empire was pushed to the brink of bankruptcy over this issue last summer, when Plainfield Asset Management, a lead investor in upstate racinos Tioga and Vernon Downs, called in some $22.5 million in Empire’s notes.

It is unclear what this setback will mean for the company.

“We are working with our financial advisers, Merrill Lynch and our legal counsel on next steps with the bondholders,” the company’s spokesman, Charlie Degliomini, the senior vice president, told the paper. “We are attempting to craft a solution that will be mutually acceptable to all parties.”

The company is now 50 percent owned by the Malaysian casino giant Kien Huat.