I think it’s fair to say that that’s what we’re looking at here in Massachusetts. Consider the developments of just the last couple of weeks:
- Attorney General Healey certified (as she had to) a ballot question that would alter the MA gambling law by authorizing another slot parlor, this one located in Revere near Suffolk Downs. Both the city of Revere and Suffolk Downs say they are not involved and don’t intend to support the measure. Nonetheless, if the proponents can gather enough signatures, it’ll be on the ballot in 2016. Generally pro-casino Globe columnist Shirley Leung is shocked! shocked! that someone might have the temerity to end-run the existing casino licensing scheme by changing it at the ballot. But once MA declared itself open for business to the gambling industry, there was every reason to think that this is exactly what would happen.
- The Mashpee Wampanoag tribe received approval from the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs to convert 320 acres of land into an Indian reservation, which will allow the tribe to move forward with long-stalled plans to build a casino in Taunton. Because the tribe will be proceeding under the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), they do not need a license from the Mass. Gaming Commission. There is already a compact in place between the tribe and the state, pursuant to which the tribe agreed to pay the state 17% of its gambling revenues – less than the 25% required of commercial casinos, but still something. This development throws a huge monkey wrench into the plans of those seeking a commercial casino license in nearby Brockton from the Mass. Gaming Commission, though that group says they plan to move forward. The Commission hasn’t said what it’s going to to; Governor Baker won’t take a position. And here is an interesting detail:
Now that the petition has been granted, the commission is forbidden under the compact between the Mashpee and the state to award a license to Mass Gaming & Entertainment. If the commission decides not to honor the compact, the tribe could operate a casino, albeit with some restrictions, while paying the state none of its revenues.
It’s certainly hard to imagine two casinos within 20 miles of each other doing very well. It’s also a virtual certainty that the tribe’s plans to build a casino on tribal land will be challenged in court, since there’s a Supreme Court decision that seems to put up an obstacle to their doing so; legislative fixes have been proposed but to my knowledge not yet enacted. So the casino drama in southeastern MA seems likely to drag on for years.
- MGM announced that it would ditch the high-rise portion of its planned casino in Springfield, and would move some other features of the planned development, including moving 54 proposed market-rate apartments away from the casino property. It’s unclear exactly why, but the most likely candidate seems to be Connecticut’s move to build a new casino jointly operated by the tribes now running Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, which would probably located south of the MA border on I-91, only a few miles from Springfield (MGM has sued to try to stop that from happening). Is MGM getting cold feet about investing $800 million in Springfield? Sure looks that way, and some Springfield officials are upset and are already invoking the magic words “material change” (which could nullify the agreement between the city and MGM), though MGM bizarrely claims that radically changing the design “leave[s] our original design largely untouched.” Ironic, given that Springfield has always been touted by casino proponents, from Charlie Baker on down, as the best argument for passing and keeping the MA casino law. (Remember the heartstring-tugging ad urging you to vote “no on 3” to give Springfield a chance?) Look for additional shoes to drop on this one.
- The ongoing sh!t-fight between would-be Everett casino mogul Steve Wynn and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh was in court yesterday, and things don’t look good for Team Walsh. But, of course, whatever the trial court rules, there will almost certainly be an appeal, which seems likely to guarantee that things will drag on for months.
Endless lawsuits and broken promises. About par for the course with casinos. How sad that it’s come to this in Massachusetts.
Who were again the politicos who initiated this whole thread of thought, that casinos would be good for the state? Any one we know?
vice presidential candidate Deval “Big Disappointment” Patrick was an important political figure when it came to casinos.
Add DeLeo and Rosenberg to the list of malefactors on this issue. I remember once being chewed out by Rosenberg when he was the Senate point person and head of a study on gambling. I told him why I had already reached the conclusion that gambling was a bad idea. He hissed “that is not how we work in the Senate. I will decide what the facts are.” Wow.
these guys are the ones with big eyes who saw the promise of big revenue without having to attach their names to a tax bill vote.
How anyone could look at a slumping industry as a panacea always eluded me. As you note, it was lazy politics with no due diligence that got us here. The only good news is that the up front costs of getting into MA and the glut in the industry may croak some of these projects. In a perfect world, Springfield shows the good sense to cancel the MGM deal now that it’s unraveling and the Governor sets up the MGC to pull Wynn’s license when he starts with the inevitable clawbacks. If we get out of this with just that tawdry slots casino in Plainfield, we’ll be the better for it.
That smaller casinos are built, turn out to be money-losers, and then the operators will demand and receive a tax cut in order to “save” the crappy jobs that they actually have.
MGM has started with it already. Wynn will go that route. Does anyone really believe he can fill more than 500 rooms at a five-star resort with international high rollers in Everett? Is that where the 1% is going to go to luxuriate? Absolutely not.
The state gambling law was designed to create pie-in-the-sky destination casinos. Once those pies stop levitating, the smart response would be to pull the licenses to avoid the exact scenario you’ve described. The casinos bid for the right to deliver on a big scale. If they can’t do it (and they can’t), then the license should be forfeit.
can be developed on that spot in Everett? After all, look where it is? Location, location, location. Think about what commuters go through now trying to travel in and around the area, and try to imagine it with added casino traffic. They want to put a casino there, and see the site as centrally located and available, fine, but don’t try to tell me it will be a world class, destination resort. This is not Las Vegas, it isn’t even Saratoga. No one is going to travel any farther than commuting distance to gamble there. It is what it is.
Everett is never going to be a destination resort for the 1%. Not in a million years.
The casino industry has “dealers” and “players”. The money comes from the players and flows to the dealers.
The 1% are dealers, not players.
Anecdotal, for sure, but the one time I went to a casino (Foxwoods about five years ago), I did not see any 1% types. What I saw were lots of late/ middle aged women playing slots and plenty of people in sweat pants and worse (some pushing baby strollers, others pushing wheelchairs) wandering the glittery spaces and loud noises…
MGM in Springfield may be the threat of a casino just over the border in Connecticut.
but it’s beside the point.
MGM came to certain agreements with Springfield and the MGC. This would be a blatant violation of all of them.
It wasn’t as if Connecticut responding by allowing another casino near Springfield was any kind of a shocker. Lots of people have predicted that and more, in lots of different places.
MGM knew what it was signing up for, and was confident they could backtrack on those promises as much and with as little fuss as possible, because that’s how the industry is treated across America.
Our politicians promised it wouldn’t be the same here — that Massachusetts would be different.
Don’t hold your breath.
Las Vegas suggests otherwise. If you build it, they will come.
Atlantic City is the counter argument. LV developed when there was no competition in the gambling field. As the industry leader, LV had the luxury of moving from a casino economy to an integrated tourist economy. LV is now a world center for food and art.
No other place has followed, witness the collapse of Atlantic City. The chance of Springfield/CT or Brockton/Taunton matching the LV experience is zero. The US is at saturation with gambling. Failure is imminent.
My hope is that all of the greedy bastards who want to build casinos put their money into the infrastructure that supports the casinos and then recognize that they are money losers before too much happens. I would be very happy if, for example, Steve Wynn sinks a few million dollars into the poor city of Everett to clean up the casino site and improve infrastructure, only to decide to bail before they take a lot of other businesses with them. Ditto for Rush Street Gaming and the Wampanoags down my way.
That smaller casinos are built, turn out to be money-losers, and then the operators will demand and receive a tax cut in order to “save” the crappy jobs that they actually have.
You’re 100% right about Vegas being a model that’s not going to get replicated. Vegas itself is a destination, an anomaly where people go to indulge and misbehave.
Yet outside of that adult playground, the casino industry has been out-innovated. Why go to some chintzy casino to play cards with your grandparents when you can play Texas hold ’em online at your convenience? And Draft Kings has perfected bro culture, by merging fantasy sports with gambling. Now you and your friends can watch your games from wherever while your money and sports acumen is on the line. Who needs a casino?
The target audience for casinos is dying rapidly. For younger generations, the idea of going to some neon palace to gamble will be as alien as walking across the room to change the channel.
as going to Suffolk Downs.
Basically, casinos outside of Vegas are about 20 years away from being Suffolk Downs, and even Vegas has had to adapt to changing tastes by emphasizing shows and dining more than ever.
our first casino …. well slots. It’s not that far from Brockton and Taunton. seems to be making money.
n/t
that causes the folks at the state lottery to worry that they are falling behind and to ask for more state money for ads and promotions to keep up.
Conversely, to the extent that Plainville doesn’t succeed, that causes the folks who write the budget to worry that revenues won’t be adequate and to think about which state programs will have to be cut.
A lose-lose.
Reno, Connecticut, Detroit and many, many other examples that allowed numerous casinos to go up all in the same area demonstrate otherwise.
What we’ve seen with casinos is this: there can be one “location” where people from, say, a large country or continent are willing to travel to as a destination — Las Vegas in the US, Macau in Asia and a few others.
Other than that, the only kind of casinos that can thrive are very, very small potatoes slot barns — that are purely designed to addict the local populace and suck them dry.
Wynn isn’t trying to build the Belagio in Everett and Massachusetts isn’t Las Vegas. The casino market in the northeast is already saturated, and will only become more so whether or not we build casinos.
The only casinos that can “make” money in Massachusetts will be the small time gross places that no one wants, not even the people who passed the bill.
Corporations get away with so very much in our society — and that goes quadruple for this corrupt and corrupting industry.
If they can’t abide by the very meager rules they agreed to play by, then we need to stand up and tell them to screw.
to my list, too.
It’s very telling that Atlantic City and Connecticut and Rhode Island’s casinos have struggled so immensely, and it’s also very telling how poorly Detroit’s three casinos have done despite the panacea they were promised to be not that long ago — when we have a potential to also have 3 casinos in such a small area as Everett, Brockton and Taunton.
I agree that he probably knows such an endeavor would be a spectacular waste of money, but that is almost exactly what he’s proposed so far. My guess is his plan is to break ground and then come in with a dramatically scaled-down version, figuring the MGC won’t dare to revoke the license when work crews are on the site. The City of Everett will let them do anything they want. No hope for a principled stand there.
Like you, I’m hoping the state decides no loaf at all is better when Wynn tries to sell them on half a loaf. I think it’s going to come down to Baker, who might see the political upside in sending a snake oil salesman packing.
It would be better economically to enjoy first mover advantage in the Northeast on recreational marijuana rather than bandwagoning behind most of the Northeast on a overly saturated and dying industry. Arguments I made prior to this referendum passing. It’s unfortunate we are now committed to subsidizing a tremendously harmful industry that will likely be in need of future bailouts.
the politicians that embraced this fiasco will face some serious consequences come election time.
The reason the state legislature picked casinos was because they didn’t want to help a city like Springfield with direct economic aid. It truly was the “we don’t have to raise taxes” solution.
Well, now MGM has directly wiped out 15 acres of downtown by buying and demolishing functioning businesses, and has heavily impacted quite a few more (because they have removed both off-street and on-street parking in that area), causing a big exodus of economic activity downtown. There are rumblings that MGM may just walk away from the project due to the Connecticut competition. So then what?
My guess is that the state legislature will do its best Pontius Pilate impression, squarely point the finger at the city, saying “well, you guys drank the poison that we provided to you [in lieu of the water you so desperately needed], so it’s your own damn fault, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps”.
I suspect that sentiment will echo loudly here because no one quite seems to appreciate the fact that when you have a true unemployment rate that is near 25% (when you account for adult-age people not in the workforce) and a downtown that hasn’t seen a new building built since 1988, anyone promising 3,000 jobs will be seen as a messiah. Boston may be doing pretty well, but there are a lot of parts of the state which are not, and we can’t figure it out on our own.
There is nothing patently wrong with the state trying to directly aid a city. It is probably cheaper than the “economic development” packages that it tries – which is a supply-side approach. Maybe spreading the “government” wealth around by moving some government services out of Boston (a city that needs no help) and into struggling Gateway Cities.