As the October 15 deadline to submit applications to host the third Indian casino in Connecticut nears, the Mohegan-Mashantucket Pequot tribes, in the form of their joint partnership MMCT, will soon need to decide which ones to support.
The city of Hartford has once again indicated that it won’t be a participant in the bidding for the right to host the third Indian casino. Last week Mayor Luke Bronin responded to a query by saying that the city, “at this point doesn’t expect to submit a response to this latest request for proposals.”
He’s willing to listen if a developer or MMCT itself, wants to suggest something for the city. “They’re sophisticated enough to figure out where they want to be,” he said, leaving a meeting of regional mayors and economic development officials. He added, “Hartford has discussed a number of potential sites.”
The third casino idea is an action of self-defense by the tribes, which own Foxwoods and the Mohegan Sun, to salvage as much revenue and jobs from being sucked into Massachusetts by the planned 2018 opening of the $950 million MGM Springfield, about 20 miles from Hartford.
The General Assembly’s Office of Fiscal Analysis released a study last week that concluded that the state could loose $68.3 million annually once the MGM Springfield opens.
This combines with another analysis recently that concluded that 31 percent of those who visit Foxwoods Resort are from Massachusetts. For the Mohegan Sun the number is 20 percent.
The tribes put forth a request for proposals for a casino with between 2,000-3,000 slots.
Meanwhile MGM has sued the state to try to overturn the law that the legislature passed last year that allowed the tribes to identify a site, without actually giving permission to build the casino. The MGM case was tossed out of federal court, but is now before the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.
The case that MGM is making could always turn in its favor once the legislature actually votes to allow the casino. The New London Day wrote in a recent editorial, “So far those legal challenges have come up short, largely because MGM is not yet aggrieved. Nothing but talk has happened. This is unchartered legal territory. No one knows if the state can constitutionally give exclusive rights to a third tribal casino that is not located on reservation land. The courts would have to sort things out if that happens.”
Some of the areas that have been mentioned for the casino include the now defunct Showcase Cinemas in East Hartford, Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, and East Hartford.
Despite its ongoing lawsuits, MGM has suggested that the best place (from its own standpoint) would be to build the casino in Bridgeport, where it could tap the New York market. This is seen by supporters of a third casino as a way of dividing the legislature by attracting lawmakers from the southwestern part of the state.
