Although the town of Tiverton, Rhode Island, voted three weeks ago to authorize a casino near the border with Massachusetts, the vote was very close—a 368 vote margin, and the town of 16,000 residents remains divided on the issue.
Town Administrator Matthew Wojcik told the Associated Press that the municipal government is committed to respecting the views of both sides.
The vote authorizes the Twin River Management Group to transfer its casino license from Newport, close the Newport Grand slots parlor, and open the Tiverton casino just across the border from Fall River.
Twin River spent $3 million on the campaign to convince state and Tiverton voters to support the casino. The statewide support was much broader than that in Tiverton.
The town government must still give planning approval before the casino and hotel can be built on 45 marshy acres near Route 24. The new council that will take office in January also includes some casino opponents.
Nevertheless, Twin River is committed to moving and moving quickly on building the $75 casino with 1,000 slot machines, 30 gaming tables, a hotel with 84 rooms. The town is guaranteed $3 million a year from casino profits, with the state committed to making up the difference if the profits are not large enough. Gaming is the third largest source of revenue for the state government.
Former U.S. Rep. Bob Steele, a vocal critic of gaming, advises the town not to become too dependent on gaming revenues. He told the AP: “The fact is there is no evidence that casino expansion in any way, on a longer-term basis, helps a local economy,” he said. “On the way up everybody cheers, ‘Look at all this money!’ And then on the way down the economics begin to fall apart. It’s a bad recipe for building a state’s economy and society.”
He notes that in neighboring Connecticut that the revenues produced by the two tribal casinos have declined in recent years from a peak of $305 million to a projected low of $196.6 million four years from now.
