Commission agrees to Region C casino briefing
Photo | Courtesy
Encore Boston Harbor in Everett
As gaming regulators resolved to get fully up to speed on what it would take to authorize a resort casino in southeastern Massachusetts, Sen. Michael Brady on Thursday urged the Gaming Commission to give Brockton a second crack at landing the casino license.
The commission agreed Thursday to have its legal staff brief commissioners on a variety of issues associated with the still-unassigned casino license for the southeastern part of the state, known to the commission as Region C, with the intention of weighing whether to re-open the bidding process for what would be Massachusetts's third and final commercial casino license.
The discussion of revisiting the bidding for the Region C license stems from a request for the Gaming Commission to reconsider its 2016 denial of a bid to build a casino at the Brockton Fairgrounds. Mass Gaming & Entertainment, the developer behind the unsuccessful bid, petitioned the commission last year to reconsider its application without reopening a broad application process for the southeastern region casino license and the commission has since pushed off serious consideration of the request amid turnover of the commission chairmanship and the investigation of Wynn Resorts.
Brady, a Brockton native, attended Thursday's commission meeting to urge the panel to take another look at Brockton and the MG&E proposal, and to invite commissioners to tour the City of Champions with him.
"So the revenue that's desperately needed for Brockton, the jobs that are desperately needed because, as I mentioned, the shoe industry isn't what it used to be," Brady said after detailing the decline of manufacturing jobs in Brockton. "The medical industry is doing well, but this would be an added boom to our area for the jobs, the revenue and also the infrastructure."
MG&E, which is backed by Rush Street Gaming, told the commission last June that its roughly $700 million project was "ready to start" and the $85 million licensing fee was "ready to be paid today." The developer said its project would provide 2,000 construction jobs and 1,800 permanent jobs, and would generate more than $70 million in annual state tax revenue and up to $13 million for Brockton.
Brady told the commission that the idea of a casino being developed in Brockton has broad support among residents, business owners and public officials.
"We did have a vote of the residents a while back and there was overwhelming support from the residents in the city of Brockton to support this third Region C casino," Brady said. The News Service reported at the time that the 2015 casino vote in Brockton passed with 7,163 votes or 50.5 percent in favor and 7,020 votes opposed to the proposal.
Commission Chairwoman Cathy Judd-Stein asked that the commission staff begin preparing briefings regarding the status of Region C, MG&E's motion for reconsideration, an overview of the public comments last year when the commission sought input on Region C from the public, and an update on the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe's efforts to develop a casino in Taunton as "first steps in getting us up to speed on this matter."
"Given that neither Commissioner O'Brien nor I have been involved in any past discussions and decisions relating to this region, I think it makes sense as a first immediate step for the legal team to bring us and the rest of the commission up to speed," Judd-Stein said, referring to Commissioner Eileen O'Brien, who also has joined the panel since the 2016 decision to not award a Region C license.
Of concern in Region C when the commission rejected the MG&E proposal by a 4-1 vote was the possibility of the Brockton casino competing with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe's planned $1 billion First Light Resort and Casino in Taunton, less than 20 miles from the site of the planned Brockton casino.
Since the commission denied the MG&E proposal, the decision to grant the tribe land in trust on which the tribe planned to construct the casino has been reversed and the future of the tribe's plan remains in doubt.
Commissioner Enrique Zuniga said Thursday it is important that the commission staff delves into the status of the gambling market in the Northeast, and specifically in Massachusetts, as well as the potential impact on casino gambling from online gaming, sports betting and daily fantasy sports.
Though some industry watchers have begun to raise concerns about the potential for oversaturation of the casino gaming market in the Northeast, Brady said people in his part of Massachusetts are still traveling elsewhere to gamble.
"In the south region, I still hear from people that are going to other states. They have so-called golf and gamble trips where they rent a bus, they go down and play golf and then they have a nice lunch afterwards and they visit the casinos in the other states," he said. "We're losing the Massachusetts residents continuously to these other states."
In its ruling from 2016, the commission wrote that it determined MG&E's application demonstrated that it had not "thought broadly and creatively about creating an innovative and unique gaming establishment that will create a synergy with, and provide a significant and lasting benefit to, the residents of the host community, the surrounding communities, the region and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and will deliver an overall experience that draws both residents and tourists to the gaming establishment and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts."
Since the 2011 expanded gaming law took effect, Massachusetts has licensed a slots parlor and two of three possible resort casinos. The slots parlor, Plainridge Park Casino in Plainville, opened in June 2015. MGM Springfield opened in August and Encore Boston Harbor, operated by Wynn Resorts, opened on Sunday.
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