The two Connecticut tribes that operate Foxwoods and the Mohegan Sun, last week released a report that claims the new casinos in Massachusetts and New York will drain 0 million a year from the state’s casino revenues by 2017 unless defensive measures are taken. The state will also lose nearly 6,000 jobs, according to the report. But that would not be the end of the losses. Vendors who service the two casinos would also be subject to job losses, nearly 2,000, according to the report. Another 1,600 jobs would be lost because the workers laid off would be spending less money.
The state collects 25 percent of the two casinos’ revenue in taxes.
The report concludes, “These figures indicate that the opening of resort casinos in Massachusetts and New York is about to catalyze one of the largest inter-state transfers of gaming revenue in recent U.S. history – second only to the transfer from New Jersey’s casinos to Pennsylvania’s casinos that occurred from 2006 to 2014.”
The report is by Clyde Barrow, an expert in the New England gaming market, and currently chairman of the political science department at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley.
Barrow has been analyzing the area gaming market for two decades before he moved to Texas. He relied on much of the data that he accumulated during those years to arrive at his conclusions.
The defensive measures the tribes support is a bill before the legislature that would allow up to three small casinos that would be strategically placed near the border to keep state residents from gambling in the Bay State.
They are aiming at the Springfield casino that MGM is building in that city, and which is considered the gravest threat to the two tribal casinos.
Barrow advocates a casino along the Interstate 91 corridor north of Hartford as the best location for competing with the MGM Springfield. A second priority location is along Interstate 84 in the southwestern part of the state.
The bill before the legislature would give the governing body of a host community a veto over a casino proposal. However, a vote of the residents would not be required. Both tribes have said that they don’t want to try to build casinos in communities that don’t welcome them.
In releasing the report Mohegan tribal Chairman Kevin Brown declared, “We want to continue the education process.”
One Connecticut lawmaker has accused the tribes of hypocrisy. “What’s not lost on me is that the tribes were in competition over state lines to build their own casinos,” said Rep. Joe Verrengia recently to the Hartford Courant. “Those same jobs, those same revenues they’re trying to protect today, are those same revenues, those same jobs that would have left the state if they had been successful.”
One of the border communities frequently spoken of as a potential site of one of the three casinos, Windsor, has decided to remove itself from consideration early.
Last week the town council voted unanimously on a resolution that the city does not want a casino. Members said the proposal is deeply unpopular with residents and not the sort of economic development they are looking for.
Windsor joins Enfield in saying “no thanks” to a potential casino. Last week Enfield Assistant Town Manager Courtney Hendricson told the Hartford Courant, “There’s a number of reasons opening a casino in Enfield doesn’t make sense; mainly, we’re only eight miles south of the massive casino that’s already a done deal.” She noted that the town is already a regional shopping destination.
These two resolutions appear to reflect recent polls that show that two-thirds of the population of the state opposes more casinos.
