In a move that the chairman of the gaming commission called “coming out of left field,” the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe has challenged the legality of some of the machines at the state’s first casino offering slot machines. It alleges that they are actually a form of table game, and therefore illegal at what has been touted as a slots parlor.
The Expand Gaming Act of 2011 authorizes three casino resorts and a slots parlor that can have as many as 1,250 machines. The commission last year issued a ruling that would allow the Plainridge Park Casino, which is opening on June 24, to deploy as many as 1,500 slots, despite the fact that its license is for 1,250. The commission authorized the addition of 350 machines that allow more than one player. They mimic table games, without actually being table games. The tribe claims that they are table games.
The tribe has asked the state attorney general to look into the matter. In a letter to AG Maura Healey the tribe wrote, “The tribe hereby respectfully requests that the Attorney General’s Office investigate this matter and advise the commission to rescind or amend its regulations. Healey’s office last week said the matter is under review.
The tribe hopes to eventually build the First Light Resort and Casino in Taunton, less than 20 miles from the slots parlor. The Mashpees are waiting for the Bureau of Indian Affairs to rule on their application to put land in Taunton into trust, which they need in order to open a casino.
The tribe argues that the additional 300 slots could divert revenues that would go to the Indian casino if they weren’t in place. They assert that the tribe could lose as much as $30 million a year.
Gaming Commission Chairman Stephen Crosby expressed confidence that the commission has acted within the law. “I’m very confident in our work, in our lawyering and in our process, but I’m also open to talking about it,” he commented last week.
Penn National Gaming Inc. will be operating the slots parlor beginning next month. Its national spokesman Eric Schippers commented, “We believe their claim is completely without merit and that we are in full compliance with state regulations.”
At the commission meeting last week, Chairman Crosby said the tribe’s assertion “came out of left field.” During a long review by the commission’s legal staff and public review, “We discussed this in a very public, robust extended conversation,” he said. He noted that the tribe did not object during that process.
The dispute centers on whether electronic table games, where more than one player can play, are legally slot machines, which the commission asserts. The tribe argues that such games are table games, which are not allowed at the one slots parlor.
Crosby said that the commission would cooperate fully with Healey’s investigation. “We can look at our regs at any time, that’s why we’re perfectly happy to cooperate with the AG,” he said. “If they think there’s something to look at, we’re more than happy to look at it.”
Southeastern Casino Zone
Meanwhile, the playing field in the contest for the final license that will be issued in the Bay State became simpler two weeks ago with the withdrawal from the bidding by the Crossroads Massachusetts LLC, a consortium that had wanted to build a casino in Somerset. The proponents were struggling from the beginning, especially to obtain financial backing and had requested two extensions from the commission. Crossroads withdrew with a terse letter that did not spell out its reasons for withdrawing.
With the withdrawal of Crossroads, the field is left to Mass Gaming & Entertainment and KG Urban.
Mass Gaming, a subsidiary of Rush Street Gaming, two weeks ago won a host community election in Brockton by a whisker. The margin of the vote supporting the $650 million casino resort on the Brockton fairgrounds, 143 votes, was so close that opponents of the casino are contemplating requesting a recount of the vote. They have ten days after the election to make the decision.
Isabel Lopez of Brockton Interfaith Community, one of the religious groups that opposed the casino, said that her group would be meeting to decide whether to make the request. Despite losing, her group was proud that the vote was so close: 7,163 for and 7,020 no. “It means a lot,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle. “This was just a volunteer effort. The people that were for the casino spent more than a million dollars in advertising.”
Another anti-casino group, Stand UP for Brockton, hopes to take its case to the commission, and to point out that the pro-casino outspent opponents by a large margin.
KG Urban, which has partnered with Foxwoods to propose a casino resort along the waterfront in New Bedford, was given the go ahead to move to phase 2 of the licensing process. However, the commission intimated that the company is close to trying its patience with its own delays.
The commission voted that the developer’s initial application was “substantially complete,” with the stipulation that all financial details be submitted within two weeks.
Scott Butera, former Foxwoods chief executive officer, who has been brought in as one of the partners, and to be CEO of the proposed casino, assured the panel that the finances were nearly completed.
Which prompted Crosby to warn, “Our patience is not unlimited.” He added, “Word to the wise: this has got to get moving quickly.”
Voters of New Bedford will cast ballots about the $650 million casino proposal on June 23.
Governor Charlie Baker continues to see “uncertainty” about the location of a casino in the Southeastern zone. “I really do believe, and I could be wrong about this, that some of the uncertainty in the southeastern market’s going to slow down the process anyways, separate and apart from whatever the Gaming Commission does,” he said during a radio interview last week.
MGM Springfield
And MGM Springfield is still moving at a snail’s pace to achieve its final permit approvals from the city to begin actual construction of the $800 million casino resort in the South End.
Nevertheless, things are happening. Recently the city council approved the beginning of utility work for the project. At the same time workers are clearing the site of several buildings that have been approved for demolition.
Most of the delays have been provided by concerns raised by the city and state historical commissions that called for preserving all or part of several old structures, such as the State Armory.
The South End project will transform a 14.5-acre footprint that encompasses several city blocks into a casino resort in the heart of the city.
Even so, MGM still maintains that it will open its casino in 2017.
Just as the tribal casino in Connecticut are looking over their shoulders at the MGM Springfield, the MGM Springfield is looking over its shoulder at the satellite casino or casinos that the Connecticut legislature may authorize in response.
Slots Parlor
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker said he doesn’t plan to attend the opening of the Plainville casino. “I don’t think I’m going to be there for the opening,” he told a radio interviewer.
Although he won’t be there for the opening, Baker said the new facility would be “historic.” He is including $84 million in payments to the state in his 2016 budget, a number considered conservative.
To coincide with the opening of the Plainridge Park Casino, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission has begun a study of how the casino will impact crime in the Plainville area.
The commission has hired a law enforcement analyst who has worked with police departments to do the study. He is currently researching existing statistics to establish a baseline for the study.
Such studies, when done for police departments, help them track crimes and assign resources to deal crime in areas before it happens.
The study will also look at such things as car repossessions, which might be expected to increase if people fall behind in payments because of gambling debts.
The gaming expansion act that authorized three casinos and one slots parlor in the Bay State also requires that the commission keep track of the impact of gaming on public safety, including track gambling-related incidents.
According to Commissioner Gayle Cameron, “This critical public safety initiative will provide the necessary information to allow for data-driven policing strategies and, most importantly, establish a cooperative effort across participating police agencies that will advance coordination and information sharing concerning public safety matters related to gaming facilities.”
Evidence of police departments that have casinos in their backyards tends to dispute the notion that casinos cause crime.
In Vicksburg, Mississippi, where five casinos operate, Police Chief Walter Armstrong says he has seen just five major crimes associated with gaming in the 31 years he has been in police work. In one a senior couple was followed from a casino to their home, robbed and shot, although not fatally. In another a wife was kidnapped by her husband outside of the casino. In a third incident, a man stabbed his girlfriend at a casino.
According to Armstrong, interviewed by the Patriot Ledger, “We answer over 5,000 calls for service a month and very few are at a casino and, for those that are, it would be stuff like auto theft. To my surprise, crime has been fairly minimal. I wish we had as few crimes in other parts of the city.”
Officer Gerard Luczak, who takes calls for an area that includes the Rivers Casino in Pittsburg, told the Ledger that he did not notice any increase in crime after the casino opened in 2009.
The Ledger also talked to Des Plaines Police Deputy Chief Nick Treantafeles, whose department is also near the Rivers Casino. He has seen some increase in calls, but said, “It’s just like any place that serves alcohol,” he said. “You get drunk and disorderly, but their security handles 98 percent of the issues there. We might get called for a fight that gets out of hand. … It hasn’t put a damper on the services we offer the rest of the community.”
Drexel University and Temple University studied eight years of crime data to see how the SugarHouse Casino in Philadelphia impact crime in the residential neighborhood that it is next to.
Researchers concluded, “that the operation of the casino had no significant effect on violent street felonies, vehicle crime, drug crime or residential burglary in the surrounding community.”
