With its efforts to put land in Taunton into trust for a casino currently stymied in U.S. District court and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe could seek a commercial gaming license from the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, although it would mean the tribe wouldn’t be able to keep as large a percentage of the profits and the casino would not be operating on sovereign territory.
The tribe wants to build the $1 billion First Light Resort & Casino.
That possibility was floated last week by Taunton Mayor Thomas Hoye, who said the tribe is considering the idea. He told Taunton Gazette, “I think the state would be happy to take the $85 million commercial application fee.” He added, “In the relatively near future, they’re going to have to make a decision on how to proceed.”
Opponents of a casino in Taunton, including the 25 residents who successfully sued the Bureau of Indian Affairs in U.S. District Court aren’t ruling out that development either. Michelle Littlefield, the lead plaintiff, told the Gazette, “As long as they aren’t expecting a free pass from the state (and agree to pay the $85 million application fee), then more power to them. My personal issue is that there be local and state oversight, whether it’s a casino or ice cream parlor.”
Opening a commercial casino would require the tribe to ask the commission to reopen the casino siting process for Region C, which encompasses the southeastern part of the state. They could still use the land near the city’s Liberty & Union Industrial Park.
The tribe is backed financially by the Genting Group of Malaysia, which is considered to be the largest casino developer in the world and which, by its own estimation, has already invested $250 million in interest bearing promissory notes owed it by the tribe. Genting has a seven-year management agreement with the tribe.
Littlefield said she hopes that the commission wouldn’t automatically grant the tribe its request. “I still don’t appreciate having a casino 300 feet away from East Taunton Elementary School,” she declared, pointing out that the gaming commission used the proximity of a proposed casino in Brockton to an elementary school as a factor in rejection.
The tribe, recognized by the federal government in 2007, has since that date sought to acquire land and put it into trust for a reservation. So far no one from the tribe has commented on whether it might seek an option divorced from making its Taunton land sovereign territory.
Tribal Chairman Cedric Cromwell issued a statement that skipped over that question: “We will continue our existing appeal while working closely with the Interior Department to protect our land base, bring thousands of jobs to Southeastern Massachusetts, and secure a prosperous future for the tribe and the entire region.”
The state gaming commission might be sympathetic to granting a commercial license to the tribe since it has so far accommodated the tribe by declining to approve an earlier commercial license application that the tribe claimed would have harmed its market. Before that the state government tried to persuade the Mashpees to seek a commercial license instead of trying to put land into trust.
State officials worried that if it authorized four casinos, a number which was selected after studying how much the market could bear, and the tribe jumped in with an Indian casino, that the marketplace might be saturated.
The tribe chose instead to seek a solution where they retained sovereign control over their casino. This led, in April 2016 with the commission rejecting a bid for a $677 million casino in Brockton. In July 2016 U.S. District Court Judge William G. Young ruled that the federal government had erred in putting the tribe’s land into trust.
Last week the commission issued a statement that: “In keeping with our approach to complex challenges, the commission remains open to innovative ideas from commercial and tribal developers alike regarding the establishment of a destination-resort casino in Southeastern Mass.”
The developer that proposed the Brockton casino, Mass Gaming & Entertainment, issued a statement saying this would be unfair, and asking that its own bid be reconsidered.
The commission would probably be legally prevented from simply granting a license to the tribe without reopening the process to a competitive bid, which Mass Gaming would be able to take part in.
Commission Chairman Steven Crosby has long favored a middle way, where the state would grant a gaming license to the tribe, but not oppose it if it later sought to put the land into trust. Legal experts say this has never been done before and there might be legal obstacles to converting a commercial casino into a tribal one governed by the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA.)
