Up on stage at a recent forum on gambling and economic development last week, the experts all nodded their heads in agreement.

There is plenty of demand for gambling in Massachusetts — between $1.6 billion and $2.5 billion worth a year, depending on whether you ask the college policy wonk, the accountant or the two think-tank directors.

That is the amount that Massachusetts gamblers can be expected to lose every year, once casinos are built in the state.

And the experts were all in agreement that right now, a billion dollars is being lost by Massachusetts residents in out-of-state casinos and slot parlors, mostly in Connecticut, but also in Rhode Island, New York state and Maine.

By those estimates, casinos in Massachusetts will increase the amount that its citizens will gamble away every year by between $600 million and $1.5 billion.

That billion-dollar figure is the biggest reason why Massachusetts lawmakers finally approved casinos. They just cannot stand to see all that tax revenue going somewhere else. Concerns about gambling addiction, crime and the giant sucking sound that casinos make when they enter a local economy were swept away by the almighty dollar.

So, now the state will have casinos. What will they look like?

The experts told members of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission at Quinsigamond Community College Thursday that the casinos being proposed must be big enough, swank enough and stocked with enough amenities to attract people from outside the state. Slots and gaming tables are only part of the picture.
 
In other words, follow the model of the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos in Connecticut. The two casinos have fed the tax coffers of the state of Connecticut and created thousands of jobs.

“These casinos should compete with the quality of their amenities, not on who has the cheapest buffet,” said Michael Pollock, managing director of Spectrum Gaming Group, a think tank that specializes in analyzing the economic impact of casinos.

But there are significant differences between the Connecticut casinos and those proposed in Massachusetts, the experts said.

For one, the Connecticut casinos were built in the quiet, sparsely populated northeast corner of the state, which did not have any of the amenities that the casinos brought to town. The region also did not have an established tourism industry, nor did it have a significant population base.

Massachusetts already has amenities, such as luxury hotels, concert venues, golf courses, museums, destination retail shops and convention centers. It has a thriving tourism industry, significantly more robust than any other New England state. And it has people — 48 percent of all the residents in New England.

But for all their success, the Connecticut casinos are self-contained little cities, economically separate from the host towns of Ledyard and Montville, connected only by the casino employees who live in town. Visitors might fill up their SUV at a local gas station on their way in or out, but that's it.

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission pressed the experts for answers on how the casinos in Massachusetts can be economic engines, rather than the economic version of a walled city.

Their answers were surprising.

First, Massachusetts should not tax casinos above about a third of total revenue. Taxing them at a higher rate will force the casino developers to build smaller casinos, argued Mr. Pollock.

In Maryland, he said, slot parlors have been set up to be excellent generators of tax revenue, as 60 percent of their revenues are handed over to the state. But those Maryland facilities can't be anything more than slot parlors, he said, because they had less money to build initially and have little money to reinvest in the ventures. (Massachusetts is proposing a 25 percent tax rate on revenues from three destination casinos, and 40 percent on one slot parlor).

Second, casinos have to be heavily regulated, at least at first, the experts said. There has to be a level playing field during the initial application process, and the integrity of the commission members has to be above reproach.

And third, casinos should connect their development to existing amenities.

“People are already drawn to Massachusetts for its amenities,” said Carl F. Jenkins, managing director of CBIZ Tofias, an accounting firm. “Connecting them to the casino should be part of the approval process. That will encourage casino users to use the local market.”

This last bit of advice is not realistic. Casinos do not share well. They don't partner with local businesses; they strangle them.

Casinos actively discourage gamblers from ever leaving the grounds, plying them with free drinks, even blocking windows to confuse people about whether it is day or night.

I think the state is similarly confused about the benefits of casino gambling. It will lose more than it will win, just like the gamblers who cannot pull themselves away.

Email Aaron Nicodemus at anicodemus@telegram.com