The 0 MGM Springfield, aiming for a 2018 opening, is nearing completion of its seven-level parking structure.
According to MGM it has created 2,000 construction jobs and will create 3,000 permanent jobs once the casino opens. Of those 2,200 will be full time with benefits.
The casino is committed to hiring at least 35 percent of those workers from Springfield and to hire no more than 10 percent from out of the area in order to meet its other commitments to hire women, minorities and veterans.
Plainridge Park
The opening of Plainridge Park Casino in Plainville nearly two years ago proved to be a boon to the unemployed or part-time workers who were hired by it, according to a new survey by the UMass Donahue Institute over a period of two years.
About half of the new employees of the casino fit that description. The survey also noted that about 40 percent of those hired “needed work” and that nearly 90 percent were new to the gaming business.
Rachel Volberg, principal investigator of the group that has been tasked by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission with monitoring the effects of casino gaming on the state’s economy and quality of life, noted that “One of the most important positive impacts of expanded gambling is increased employment” adding, “However, in assessing the overall impacts of expanded gambling, it is important to understand whether employment gains at the casino result in the loss of employment in other sectors of the economy and in surrounding communities.”
Most of those who were hired had been seeking to better themselves career-wise, said the report. Almost 93 percent reported that they did not need to move in order to be employed by the casino, and those who did were mainly from the Bay State or nearby Rhode Island.
Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC) Chairman Stephen Crosby said the survey showed that the casino was achieving the purpose that the legislature intended when it passed the gaming expansion act of 2011.
He said, “As we have pointed out repeatedly, the Legislature made broad-based economic development a key focus of the Gaming Act, with a particular focus on local employment for those underemployed and unemployed. This report, thus far, demonstrates that legislative intent is being achieved.”
Besides the MGM Springfield, the $2.1 billion Wynn Boston Harbor is under construction, with a 2019 opening date. The law intended to authorize a third casino resort, this one in the southeastern part of the state, but the MGC declined to authorize one, preferring to defer to the $1 billion casino that the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe is struggling to build in Taunton.
Once all of the projected casinos are operating Crosby said revenues are expected to be about $300 million a year.
Meanwhile Plainridge Park had its third best month ever in terms of revenues, bringing in about $14.3 million in April, according to the MGC. The handle for April was $174,811,169.76.
So far, Plainridge Park is the only casino operating under the 2011 law. Since it opened in June 2015 the state has collected more than $145 million in taxes from the $3.66 billion wagered. The state collects 49 percent of gross gaming revenue from slot machines. Another 18 percent is paid to help support the state’s horseracing industry, which is largely defunct.
Taunton Casino
A judge of the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, David J. Barron, has granted a request from the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe to stay its appeal of a lower court ruling that the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs lacked the authority to put 151 acres in Taunton into trust—until the Bureau addresses the judge’s ruling that it used the wrong section of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act when it made the determination.
The BIA has said that it will issue a new determination on the Taunton land in June. The tribe is waiting to see if that fits its needs so that it can continue building the $1 billion that it started work more than a year ago—only to stop cold when it hit the judicial cinderblock.
The drama began unfolding in September 2015 when the BIA put a total of 321 acres into trust in Mashpee, on Martha’s Vineyard, and Taunton, on the mainland, prompting a lawsuit by residents of East Taunton who oppose a casino. They argued that the BIA lacked the authority to put the land into trust, citing the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Carcieri v. Salazar, which said that tribes “not under the authority” of the federal government in 1934 could not put land into trust. The tribe was granted federal recognition in 2007.
Judge William G. Young ruled in favor of the residents, but left the BIA an escape clause, suggesting that it use a different section of the law than it had used to put the land into trust. He allowed the BIA to amend its original argument: an action called a “remand.”
Once that remand is filled, the appeal judge, the Mashpee tribe, and the East Taunton residents will decide whether and when to move forward with an appeal. They will have ten days to make that decision.
