High Stakes: CT Casino Chasing Hollywood Mogul For $2.7M Gambling Debt

MONTVILLE, CT — A former Hollywood mogul is into the house for over $2.7 million, and the house wants him to pay up.

That’s the gist of a complaint filed by the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority in New London Superior Court against Ron Meyer, who helmed Universal Studios for 18 years.

According to the paperwork filed on May 8, Meyer, who lives in Malibu, CA, signed a credit application for $6 million with the plaintiff on or about Aug. 14, 2015, and used the line of credit he obtained to gamble at MTGA’s casino Mohegan Sun in Montville. He then “lost $5,000,000 in a single day,” on Oct. 13, 2017, according to the complaint.

Meyer then signed over checks (known as “markers”) to the casino to cover his debt. When presented for payment in April, 2018, all five checks were returned for insufficient funds in the account on which they were drawn, the suit alleges.

Meyer entered in to an installment plan on April 26, 2018, with Mohegan Sun to pay back the money owed, but stopped making payments as of Sept. 1, 2023. The mogul still owes the casino $2,782,500, according to the plaintiff.

But Connecticut law forbids the enforcement of contracts enabling any type of gambling on credit, unless the controlling tribal-state compact expressly authorizes it, according to a Motion to Strike filed by Meyer’s attorney Brian E. Spears last week. For example, the legal team notes that in 2001, the courts ruled in favor of Foxwoods Resort Casino collecting on a debt “validly contracted in a sovereign Indian Nation.” Because of Connecticut’s “ancient and deep-rooted ban on lending money to gamblers,” and “absent an express authorization permitting the Mohegan Sun to extend credit for gambling,” Meyer’s lawyers contend the “alleged contract for repayment… is void.”

Meyer co-founded Creative Artists Agency in 1975, and was president and CEO at Universal Studios from 1995-2013. He is currently the CEO of European film distribution and production services company Wild Bunch.