Quapaw Nation ousts two Saracen executives

Saracen Casino top executives Carlton Saffa and Matt Harkness are out, and a new CEO, Rod Centers, has been hired, effective immediately.

That’s according to a news release from the Quapaw Nation, which controls the Pine Bluff casino. Centers most recently was the chief operating officer of Seneca Gaming Corporation, the Seneca Nation’s gaming enterprise, headquartered in Niagara Falls, New York.

Saffa and Harkness were informed on Thursday, Sept. 24, that they had been recommended for termination by a unanimous vote of the Downstream Development Authority, which owns and operates the tribe’s casinos, including Saracen, for the Quapaw Nation, located in Quapaw, Oklahoma.

The authority’s decision was affirmed on Monday by a vote of the Quapaw Nation Business Committee, a seven-member group that has the ultimate decision-making authority.

The resolution detailing the reasons for the men’s ouster said they had created software and marketed it to other entities within the Arkansas gaming industry, an act that violated their “obligations not to engage in conflicting employment activities while employed by Saracen and obligations not to compete.” 

The resolution also stated that Harkness was guilty of gross negligence that “resulted in Saracen’s financial instability.”

Harkness could not be reached, but Saffa said on Friday the allegations did not accurately describe the situation, but he declined to go into more detail.

The descriptions of why the men were being terminated were sprinkled with the term “for good cause,” which, among other things, can be a way for an employer to avoid paying severance or payouts in an employment contract, according to multiple online legal sources.

Saffa said he was the first employee of Saracen, starting the casino in 2019 in what had been a large convenience store across the highway from what would, a year later, be an 80,000-square-foot casino with 1,500 gaming machines.

To many in the Pine Bluff area, Saffa became the face of Saracen, speaking easily and often with local and state leaders and media. 

Saracen officials had committed to building a hotel alongside the casino, and when the months ticked by and there was no progress, residents started to wonder if it was ever going to happen. Saffa was quick to say that the price of raw materials – steel and concrete – had spiked, along with inflation – and that, while the timing wasn’t right, the hotel would happen. Cranes will be in the air by the end of the year, he would say.

When Moody’s and S&P Global raised Saracen’s credit rating in 2021 because of what the ratings agencies said was strong performance, Saracen was able to refinance a loan at a much cheaper rate, saving the Quapaw Nation some $30 million annually in interest on loans it needed to build the hotel and an events center. The 14-story, 318-room hotel opened in June, with the 1,600-seat event center opening in April.

The fact that there was even a casino in Pine Bluff was seen as something of a miracle, especially in a town with a plummeting population and more experience at watching businesses close than open. 

Voters in 2018 approved a statewide ballot measure for two new casinos to be placed in the state, one in Pine Bluff and one in Pope County. Pine Bluff’s casino, through the cooperation of then-Mayor Shirley Washington, then-Jefferson County Judge Gerald Robinson and John Berrey, the chairman at the time of the Quapaw Nation Business Committee, went forward, while Pope County’s effort dissolved in a yearslong legal battle that ultimately ended when another statewide vote revoked that county’s casino license. Saffa became Berrey’s first hire at the Pine Bluff operation.

Washington, who left office at the end of 2024, applauded Saffa for his work in Pine Bluff and across southeast Arkansas.

“It is very unfortunate and deeply disheartening to learn that Carlton Saffa is no longer employed at Saracen Casino Resort,” Washington wrote Tuesday in a text. “His concern extended far beyond the walls of Saracen Casino Resort. … It was my honor to have had the opportunity to work with Carlton. Regardless of what others may think or say, he did his job with dedication and commitment. He took his leadership role in the Saracen development seriously and brought it to where it is today. His impact will be respected and appreciated by this community for years to come.”

The sudden firing of the two executives – Saffa said he was so caught off guard that he collapsed on the floor of his office when he heard the news and had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance, where he was treated and released – is reminiscent of the noisy departures of the some of the Quapaw’s other high-profile leaders.

In the seven years Saffa was with Saracen, he worked for four chairmen. Berrey was defeated at the polls, but after he left the position, he was charged with 11 counts, including embezzlement, conspiracy, abuse of office and misappropriation of funds. He strongly defended himself, saying the charges were politically motivated. The case never came to trial, and Berrey died in late 2025.

The next chair, Joseph Tali Byrd, resigned as chairman when a rancorous recall was mounted against him. Wena Supernaw, the chairman after Byrd, served her term without apparent drama, visiting Pine Bluff on a number of occasions, including the topping out ceremony for the hotel and the opening of the new facilities. She retired in mid-August and was followed by the new chairman, Jesse “Manz” McKibben.

Saffa said one of his goals was to develop the “brick and mortar” parts of Saracen. A monthly financial snapshot of the three casinos from the state Racing and Gaming Commission shows he was successful at that, with profits from the slots portion of the business steadily rising over the years. 

Southland Casino Hotel in West Memphis, with its nearness to Memphis, is the clear leader among the state’s three gaming houses in terms of amount of money spent and the profits made, but Saffa has said on numerous occasions that even though Saracen was the newest addition to the casino landscape in Arkansas, it consistently outdid its Hot Springs competition, Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort. Profits from slots over the past 12 months, for example, amounted to roughly $154 million for Oaklawn and $171 million for Saracen, with Southland raking in around $309 million.