“We know how to drive traffic,” says Uri Clinton, senior vice president and general counsel for MGM Resorts International, dismissing concerns about depleted gambling revenues. MGM officials claim they are not worried. With a new Connecticut facility, revenue the Massachusetts gaming facilities projected would come from Connecticut and New York, especially to MGM in Springfield, could now stop at the border, cutting into the take the global resort and entertainment giant counted on to justify its investment. That set of issues ranges from casino market competition to saturation as the Nutmeg State watches gambling revenue in a free-fall, a slide that means a major drop in money going into state coffers from the exclusive agreement with the Mashantucket Pequot and the Mohegan tribes.Ĭonnecticut’s struggles look like a cautionary tale for the nascent gambling industry in Massachusetts, where two approved resort casinos have yet to even swing open their doors. “On a larger scale, it’s a response to a whole set of issues have not responded to in a long time.” “It’s primarily a response to Springfield because that’s what’s on the immediate horizon,” says Clyde Barrow, a University of Texas professor and former New Englander who has studied the gaming industry for decades and is a consultant to the new tribal casino partnership in Connecticut. Two years ago, state leaders there approved an initial plan to allow the two Native American tribes that run Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, New England’s first and oldest casinos, to form a commercial partnership to open up a third facility in East Windsor, a mere 12 miles down Interstate 91 from the MGM complex now rising in Springfield.

It is a dilemma now facing MGM Resorts International as it nears completion of its lavish $950 million casino in Springfield with competition sprouting up even before the first croupier spins the first roulette wheel.Ĭonnecticut, where revenue from Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun has been in steady decline-and with more losses projected once Massachusetts casinos are up and running-decided that holding pat was not an option. But that variable ultimately is out of the control of most casino operators, especially those in states abutting other states that also have legalized gambling.

A key to casino success is tamping down competition and forging as much of a regional monopoly as possible.

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