Massachusetts Race to the Bottom in High Gear

Mass. legalized gambling race in high gear





(NECN: Peter Howe, Revere/Everett, Mass.) - In the last week, the legalized gambling race in Massachusetts has jumped into high gear. New plans for slots parlors have suddenly emerged in Leominster and Millbury. The Plainridge Racecourse slots parlor plan got a key boost from local selectmen who approved a “host community agreement” needed before the October 4 application deadline.

On Thursday, the Gaming Commission begins its first public reviews of whom it will deem financially and ethically fit to pursue a slots or casino license in Massachusetts – Cordish Cos. and Rush Street Gaming, the casino operators behind the slots parlor bids now focused on Leominster and Millbury.

And Wednesday, Gaming Commission chairman Steve Crosby pulled back the curtain to talk about what the Gaming Commission wants from bidders, and how it will pick winners – a speech and question-and-answer session he gave with the Revere Chamber of Commerce at the Beachmont VFW hall, within earshot of Suffolk Downs, the horse-racing track that hopes to become a billion-dollar destination resort casino.

Crosby said the ultimate criteria for deciding late this year who wins the one statewide slots-parlor license, and next April who wins the casino licenses available in eastern and western Massachusetts, will be, “What's really the best deal, broadly interpreted, for the host community, the region, and the commonwealth as a whole?”

Crosby said casino and slots plans will be scored on five categories, including the financial strength of the bidder; their plans for local traffic and environmental and community-impact mitigation; the “excellence” of the site selection and the design of the facility, including its materials, architectural merit and ecological sustainability; and how many jobs it creates and its community-wide economic development as an “outward-facing” business that connects with and promotes local hospitality and entertainment venues.

"It’s definitely a very important criteria to make sure that the net (economic) effect is positive, and you're not just having a transference of money and jobs from one place to the other” as a casino or slots parlor sucks in dollars now being spent at other entertainment and hospitality businesses," Crosby said. "It’s easier said than done."

The fifth category, Crosby said, is “what I've taken to calling 'the Wow! Factor,'" not something easily defined, but something about the bid that is compelling, unique, and especially supportive of Massachusetts’ cultural and historic identity.

“How are you going to do something different?’’ Crosby said will be a key question bidders face. “How are you going to do something that really distinguishes the casino industry in Massachusetts from the casino industry elsewhere?’’

Right now, Crosby said, investigators including five State Police detectives who have travelled as far as Macau and Singapore are investigating 300 “people and entities” associated with the 11 bidders for the casino and slots licenses.

"These are really intrusive, overwhelming invasions of your background and privacy," Crosby said. "They have to demonstrate their integrity, their honesty, and their good character, they have to demonstrate that to us."

Bidders have to clear the first phase approval of their suitability before the commission will consider “site-specific” proposals from them, Crosby said, adding that the first round of background checks generated 21,000 pages of records to consider.

On the heels of a landslide vote late last month in Everett in favor of the city’s community-benefits deal with Steve Wynn, Plainville, Mass. selectmen – in the hometown of Plainridge Racecourse – approved a “host community” deal with the harness track owners for what cash and benefits Plainville would get if Plainridge wins the slots license.

That brings the number of communities where a host-community deal is in place to four; the two others are Raynham, with the former greyhound track now seeking a slots license, and Springfield, for the downtown MGM casino plan.

Many in the audience for Crosby have been eager to see Suffolk Downs win the casino license, but notably, despite its months-long head start on Wynn, and its support from big-name political leaders like Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo of Winthrop, Suffolk still has no deal in place with Menino or Revere Mayor Dan Rizzo.

Suffolk chief operating officer Chip Tuttle, who attended Crosby’s speech and kept a deliberate distance from the chairman to avoid any appearance of improper lobbying, shared his thoughts.

"There's been a lot of community process, a lot of discussion with both cities. You know, if this were a race," Tuttle said. "I think you'd say we're in the final furlongs, but you know, we continue to work with both our host communities" on deals maximizing the local economic and business-community benefits.

Rizzo told Revere Chamber members: "It seems as though it's taking quite a while. I'm very, very confident that we will ultimately get there, and put Suffolk Downs in a position where they can at least be able to submit an application to the Gaming Commission."

Besides Wynn in Everett, Suffolk is also competing with a Foxwoods proposed casino in Milford, which in recent days has angered local officials because Foxwoods keeps changing critical details like the size and location of buildings and access roads on the parcel at Interstate 495 between Routes 16 and 85.

And the very latest wild card in the race: An affiliate of Rush Street is now looking at Millbury, southeast of Worcester, as a place it hopes to propose a $200 million slots parlor, weeks after its deal with Worcester collapsed. Mass. Gaming and Entertainment says the facility would generate nearly $3 million a year in new town tax revenue.

With their rivals in Plainville and Raynham having locked down community agreements, Cordish and Rush are under intense pressure to get locations nailed down and approved by local officials and voters within weeks in order to be able to make the Oct. 4 application deadline with the Gaming Commission for the slots parlor license.


With videographer Dan Smith           


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