Reverberations of Plainville casino

With Massachusetts seemingly ready to roll the dice, Plainville and the Interstate 495 south area are suddenly poised to become the state's de facto capital for Las Vegas-style gambling.

When Penn National's Plainridge Park opens next spring, it will enjoy a gambling monopoly in Massachusetts that could last — at least in the eastern half of the state — for two or three years, local officials and gambling industry experts say.

MGM's planned Springfield casino is another two or three years off; plans for mega casinos in the Boston area and Southeastern Massachusetts face uncertainty and delays. Complicating it further is the effort to place a referendum on the November ballot that could potentially overturn the 2011 gambling expansion law that opened the door to Plainridge Park and other casino efforts.

Regardless, businesses in and around Plainville are hoping to cash in on the arrival of this big, new gambling and entertainment attraction — finding opportunity in demand from free-spending gamblers — in everything from dining to hotel rooms.

Yet the biggest boon to local businesses may come not from gamblers passing through town, but all the construction workers needed to build the new slots complex, and later, the hundreds of employees who will staff it.

Not to mention the millions in goods and services Penn National says Plainridge Park will buy each year from local businesses, from flowers and food to landscaping.

“This is going to be one of the best things that has come to the Plainville area in a long time,” said Jack Lank, president of the United Regional Chamber of Commerce. “It has a ripple effect — even the construction workers right now, they have to go somewhere to lunch and they have to bring home milk and bread after work.”

Casinos as economic development

Casino-style gambling has been a long time coming to the towns the southern and of I-495, with the previous owners of Plainridge having lobbied the Legislature since 2000 for a green light to roll out slot machines.

Lawmakers finally legalized Las Vegas-style gambling in 2011, followed by a years-long licensing process through the Massachusetts Gaming Commission.

But it was Penn National — one of the biggest gaming companies in the country — that finally got the chance to build the slots complex in Plainville, after the previous ownership group was disqualified by the gaming commission.

After years of debate and planning, Plainville and other nearby towns along I-495, including Attleborough, Foxborough and Wrentham, are poised to reap some of the first benefits from the new casino law.

The law, however, goes far beyond just legalizing Las Vegas-style wagering.

Rather, state lawmakers and Gov. Deval Patrick envision the casino law as a multibillion-dollar pump primer for the Massachusetts economy.

The legislation includes extensive provisions requiring gambling developers to hire and buy locally, guidelines the gaming commission has put in place during the licensing process for the state's planned gaming venues.

“One of the keys to being successful in regional gambling is to buy local, hire local and partner with local businesses,” said Jeff Morris, a spokesman for Penn National.

Yet even as Penn National and local businesses push ahead with their planning, the effort to repeal the 2011 casino law threatens to upend everything.

Casino opponents are battling to get a question on the November election ballot that would repeal the 2011 casino law. As it stands now, anti-gambling activists will have to win a court battle to place the referendum on the ballot.

Even then, Penn National and other casino developers that want to build in Massachusetts having already vowed to fight any repeal effort.

Public opinion polls in Massachusetts have consistently shown majority support over the years for casino gambling, notes Clyde Barrow, director of the Center for Policy Analysis at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and a gaming industry expert.

The strongest opposition has come from individual communities where casinos have been proposed and where residents were less happy about the prospect of a massive development project – and gambling – taking shape down the street.

Priming the economic pump

Plainville, however, was one of number of communities that embraced the idea of expanded gambling, with a town-wide referendum on the Penn National complex passing with 76 percent of the vote.

Penn National executives have said they will move ahead with plans despite the threat of a statewide repeal, noting they have successfully battled similar efforts in other states.

Penn National recently kicked off construction of its $225-million gaming complex, which will feature 1,250 slot machines, video poker, a small entertainment venue, and three restaurants, including a sports pub run by Boston College football legend Doug Flutie.

The project will employ roughly 1,000 hard-hats over the next year, pushing millions of dollars in wages into the local economy.

That will generate business for local restaurants, convenience stores and hotels as well.

“It will be one of the biggest jobs sites in the area for the next 18 months,” Lank said.

In fact, an Irish pub, the Chieftain, has already started to ring up some extra business, having become a favorite spot for Penn National executives and staff in town overseeing the planning and construction of the company's newest gaming palace.

“We are two miles away,” said Tom Cahill, who owns the Plainville pub with his wife, Mary. “When they start building, it's going to boom for me,” he said.

But the ongoing operations of Plainridge Park — once it's up and running — will provide an even bigger and ongoing stimulus to the local economy along the 495 South corridor.

First are the 550-plus new jobs that will be created when the slots parlor opens. Average annual pay is estimated at $40,000, though that number mixes the salaries of top managers with those on the bottom rungs, a study by the Innovation Group, gaming consultants hired by Penn National, found. (The salary numbers don't include tips.)

Plainridge's payroll, including tips, is expected to hit $25.5 million by 2017, its second year in operation, according to the study.

And a large share of the jobs will go to local residents, with Penn National committed to hiring 90 percent of Plainridge Park's workforce from Plainville and surrounding communities.

While that may seem like a tall order, the unemployment rate in Plainville is still around 9 percent, considerably higher than the state average, said Joseph Fernandes, town manager.

There are 450 people looking for work in Plainville alone, he said. More people getting off the unemployment rolls will mean more business for local stores, restaurants and businesses, Fernandes said.

“It would be a pleasant problem from my vantage point to have everyone looking for a job get one,” he said.

The new gaming and entertainment complex will also have an insatiable appetite for everything from flowers to food and beverages, providing opportunities for local businesses that can fill those needs.

Plainridge Park is expected to spend up to $37 million a year on “vendor expenditures,” the Innovation Group study found, with $6.8 million of that paying for “food, beverage and retail operations.”

“They have hired 20 local firms to do catering and landscaping,” United Regional chamber's Lank said. “They are already reaching out to my membership.”

Penn National is also reaching out directly to local businesses to work out cross-marketing arrangements with local hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues. It has signed initial agreements with more than 40 businesses and entertainment venues and is working out the details for the special offers it will market to gamblers, said Morris, the company spokesman.

The basic idea involves stay, play and shop packages aimed at enticing gamblers who come to play the slot machines at Plainridge Park to stay awhile and take in the local attractions, he said.

The price might include a stay at a local hotel, tickets to a Patriots game or a concert over at Live Nation's Xfinity Center in Mansfield, and shopping at Wrentham Village Premium Outlets.

Penn National opted not to include a hotel in its Plainridge Park development, with local hoteliers arguing there is still “capacity” — as in empty rooms — in the local market.

Penn National is also looking at letting gamblers who rack up points through frequent play cash in some of the chips, so to speak, at local businesses, Morris said.

“We have met with representatives from Penn Gaming and are exploring various marketing opportunities,” wrote Susan Bladd, director of marketing and business development at Wrentham Village, in a statement. “We look forward to working with Plainridge Park Casino.”

Only game in town

Penn National's new gaming venue will never rival the state's three planned resort casinos in size and scope, with the casinos offering thousands of slot machines and dozens of table games.

By contrast, Plainridge Park is restricted to 1,250 slot machines and no table games.

Two dueling proposals for a Boston-area casino license both feature projects well over a billion dollars, while out in Springfield, MGM plans to spend more than $700 million on a downtown casino.

But Penn National and local town and business officials also hope the new Plainridge Park benefits from something called the “first mover” advantage. After years of talk and hype about casinos coming to Massachusetts, Plainridge Park will be the only game in town — at least as Massachusetts is concerned — for the next few years.

The gaming commission won't issue licenses for the Boston area and Western Massachusetts casinos until this summer at the earliest. It will then take another two or three years to build these giant resorts, Fernandes, Plainville's town manager, notes.

That means Plainridge will have the Bay State gambling market to itself for possibly two years — maybe more — after it opens next year, Fernandes said.

“There is a golden window of opportunity,” he said. “We had anticipated a couple years without competition. My hope is there is some pent-up demand out there.”

Not everyone convinced

Some business owners are skeptical about Penn National's promises and talk about benefits for the local economy.

Greg Stevens, owner of Bella Sarno Ristorante in North Attleborough, contends Plainridge Park will simply suck money out of the local economy, with seniors and locals spending their hard-earned dollars playing the slots, leaving less money to dine out.

He's also concerned about the gaming venue's plans to have three restaurants of its own.

“You are talking to a guy who is very anti-casino,” Stevens said. “It's a windfall for someone, but I don't see it as a windfall for small businesses in the area.”

“I would rather see them raise taxes than put in a casino,” he said.

Still, while the idea that casinos will pillage the local economy has been a popular argument among opponents, this predicted trail of economic devastation has yet to materialize as casinos have spread to states across the country, argues Clyde Barrow, director of the Center for Policy Analysis at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

“That is just never the case — the average person is not going to go without new clothes or food to gamble,” Barrow said.

As far as competition from new restaurants is concerned, that's just part of life in a free market, he said.

“You can't say 'don't open a new restaurant because you don't want new competition,'” Barrow said. “People are always for competition until there is some.”

Still, there's also concern that the gambling market in the Northeast may finally reach saturation, with casino revenues having peaked in Connecticut and Pennsylvania, and with New York planning to roll out four full-scale casinos.

That said, there's likely to be pent-up demand for expanded gambling in Massachusetts, with Bay State gamblers representing one of the largest sources of revenue for Connecticut's two casinos, UMass Dartmouth's Center for Policy Analysis has found in yearly reviews of the New England gambling market.

Considered small in the gaming industry with only 1,250 slot machines and no table games, Plainridge Park is not likely to measurably tilt that balance one way or another, UMass Dartmouth's Barrow notes.

“It will have a limited impact,” Barrow said of the overall gaming market in New England.

“But it will have a positive impact in that you will have hundreds of newly employed people spending money on (an) array of things consumers spend money on,” he added.