Although MGM Resorts has aggressively promoted a $675 million casino in Bridgeport, Connecticut as part of its strategy to derail a third Indian casino in the state that could compete with its MGM Springfield in Massachusetts, MGM CEO Jim Murren didn’t mention that Bridgeport casino as part of a report to investors during a conference call last week.
In fact, Murren told investors that MGM is done building new resorts in the current development cycle, with the possible exception of one in Japan.
The Bridgeport casino that Murren announced in September would have 2,000 slots, 160 gaming tables, a 700-seat entertainment center, 300 room hotel, dining and shopping. The state hasn’t indicated any interest in a commercial casino and the legislature earlier this year passed legislation enabling the two gaming tribes to build a third casino to deflect the effects on the state’s gaming economy of the MGM Springfield.
MGM spokesman Uri Clinton said the absence of a Bridgeport casino from the conference call was not an oversight. “There are new opportunities for growth that MGM is actively and aggressively pursuing that have not yet earned legislative approval — including Bridgeport,” he told the Hartford Courant.
MGM has battled the third tribal casino in the halls of the legislature and in federal courts, so far without success. It has had more success in apparently lobbying the Bureau of Indian Affairs to not issue a definitive statement that the amended compact between the tribes and the state which would allow the tribes to operate a commercial casino is within the bounds of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. The East Windsor casino the tribes propose would be the first commercial casino in the nation to be operated by a gaming tribe.
Despite Clinton’s statement, MMCT Venture, the joint authority of the tribes, issued a statement calling the Bridgeport proposal, “a stunt.” Andrew Doba, a spokesman for MMCT declared, “It is clear MGM is talking out of both sides of its mouth.”
Clinton fired back: “MGM is unequivocally committed to advocating for legislation that would authorize development of a Bridgeport casino. We look forward to earning legislative approval and stand ready to begin implementing our plans.”
MMCT says it will begin demolition of a now defunct cinema in East Windsor before New Year’s.
