The board of selectmen of the town of East Windsor, Connecticut announced last week that they would send a letter to Governor Ned Lamont in support of a casino proposed for the community by the Mohegan and Mashantucket Pequot tribes. The tribes, historic rivals in the state, have come together to build the project in an entity known as MMCT Venture.
The letter was prompted by Lamont’s plan to move the casino, to be called Tribal Winds, to the XL Center in Hartford. As proposed by Lamont, the plan would also allow the tribes to open a casino in Bridgeport and also bring legal sports betting and iGaming to the state.
“We should all agree that walking away from the Tribal Winds project does not serve Connecticut’s best interests,” the selectmen’s letter said. “In fact, the only entity that benefits is MGM.”
The East Windsor location is across the Massachusetts state line from MGM Springfield, less than 20 miles away. Construction has not yet begun on the site. MGM has proposed a casino of its own in Bridgeport and is suing the state to block the East Windsor casino.
According to the Manchester Journal Inquirer, MGM Resorts has long opposed the Tribal Winds casino, which was an effort to keep Connecticut gamblers from spending their money at MGM Springfield, which opened in 2018. The legislature approved the casino to be the only such facility in the state operated off tribal land, and MGM says the decision was unfair to competitors.
The Lamont administration has reportedly pushed to move the casino out of East Windsor in order to avoid legal trouble with MGM, which said it would not sue if the location were changed to Hartford. MGM has since filed suit against the U.S. Department of the Interior, which approved the East Windsor casino.
Selectman Andrew Hoffman said MMCT lobbyist David Cappiello was “very emphatic about the fact that the (tribes) were going to go forward with a casino here in East Windsor” during a recent discussion.
“I’d thought we’d lost it,” Selectman Steven Dearborn said, adding that MMCT said it was “not budging” on its original plan because it is “obligated to East Windsor.”
Selectman Jason Bowsza said the board should focus on why “East Windsor is the appropriate place for this facility” and “let somebody else figure out the Bridgeport stuff.”
