MGM Resorts International is committed to doing all it can to keep Connecticut’s gaming tribes from building a third casino to keep the 0 million MGM Springfield in Massachusetts from hemorrhaging patrons, money and jobs from the tribes’ two existing casinos: Foxwoods and the Mohegan Sun.
As result MGM has taken more steps to try to stop competition from happening 25 miles away than just about any gaming company has ever done.
It has sued the state of Connecticut in federal court, lobbied the state’s lawmakers, given financial aid to a tribe that is challenging the same law, but using a different strategy, and has challenged the closed-door deliberations of the state’s airport authority that is considering bidding to host the casino at the Bradley International Airport.
It lost the first round of the federal lawsuit when a judge dismissed the case, but it has promised to appeal.
Last month as part of its campaign, MGM persuaded retiring Nevada Senator Harry Reid to propose an amendment to a federal defense bill that would have prevented tribes with existing casinos on tribe land to open an off-reservation casino in the same state. Clearly this was aimed at the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes,
Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy called MGM on it when he commented, “It’s pretty exceptional to try to solve a local issue in the defense authorization bill. So, we weren’t going to let that amendment go anywhere. But it’s clear that MGM is using every angle they can find to try to stop this project from going forward.”
New England gaming industry expert Clyde Barrow, who conducted a market analysis for the two tribes, told the State, “the magnitude of what MGM is engaged in is probably above and beyond anything I’ve seen elsewhere in the country at this point.”
MGM Executive Vice President Alan Feldman says that his company doesn’t object to a third casino, but the process that, he says, limits the operation of the casino to the Mohegans and Pequots. He believes other potential developers, like MGM, should be allowed to participate in that process.
MGM is not allowed to build a competing casino close to Springfield, but Feldman says that a casino in the southwestern part of the state might be viable. “We’d like the ability to show that we think there is a better alternative,” he told the State.
To lead its federal lawsuit MGM hired former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and several state lobbyists and public relations firms.
Recently a spokesman for the two tribes, Andrew Doba, declared, “MGM’s shameless tactics are well-documented. They will say anything, do anything, spend anything to protect their bottom line. And if they’re successful in Connecticut, more residents will find themselves in the unemployment line.”
MGM is definitely competitive. In 2012 it fought advertising battle with Penn National Gaming Inc. where each spent tens of millions of dollars over a ballot measure where MGM won the right to build the $1.3 billion MGM National Harbor casino.
In 2014 MGM fought federal recognition of the Pamunkey tribe in Virginia, which might compete against the National Harbor.
