Brockton Casino Vote
The Massachusetts Gaming Commission last week voted 4-1 against issuing license for a commercial casino at the Brockton fairgrounds. Mass Gaming & Entertainment proposed a 7 million casino 25 miles away from Taunton, where the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe earlier this month broke ground on a billion casino resort.
The voted ended the yearlong effort by Mass Gaming, a subsidiary of Rush Street Gaming, to qualify for the commercial license for a southeastern zone casino.
A proposed $650 million resort casino for the Brockton Fairgrounds cleared a crucial step Tuesday as city residents approved the proposal in a special election.The Enterprise newspaper reported.
- Backers of a proposed resort in Brockton, Massachusetts are hoping that the exact same could be said for casino referendums. Voters in Brockton narrowly approved a plan to bring a $650 million resort to the Brockton Fairgrounds, passing the measure in what might be the closest referendum that is such their state so far.
- 'We did have a vote of the residents a while back and there was overwhelming support from the residents in the city of Brockton to support this third Region C casino,' Brady said. The News Service reported at the time that the 2015 casino vote in Brockton passed with 7,163 votes or 50.5 percent in favor and 7,020 votes opposed to the proposal.
Mass Gaming’s Joe Baerlein reacted to the vote by saying his company was disappointed and thanked the panel for “thoughtful” deliberation, adding,
“If given the opportunity, we are confident we would have built a great project.”
Mashpee Chairman Cedric Cromwell, whose tribe had threatened to sue the commission if it voted for the commercial casino, thanked the commission for “making a difficult but wise and just decision.” He added, “Historically, our people have been the recipients of a string of broken promises. Today is not one of those days. Today, the gaming commission upheld the Commonwealth’s end of the bargain, paving the way for a fruitful economic partnership.”
Although the vote appears to achieve a certain finality regarding Brockton, it leaves open the door to no casino being built in the southeastern zone due to a court challenge to the Mashpees in federal court by residents of Taunton.
Rush Street Gaming’s Neil Bluhm brought that issue before the commission several weeks ago when he declared, “There’s very little risk to the Commonwealth in issuing us a license. But there will be no jobs, no tax revenue and no economic development if it’s determined they can’t put land into trust. It will be a mess.”
The tribe appears sanguine on the issue, and confident that it will survive the challenge.
The Brockton casino would have had 2,100 slot machines, 124 gaming tables, a 250-room hotel and several restaurants, bars and entertainment options.
Brockton is an economically strapped community of about 93,000 that could benefit from the 2,000 temporary construction jobs and 1,800 permanent jobs that could result from the casino being based there. According to Neil Bluhm owner of Rush Street Gaming, the parent company for Mass Gaming, “They’re in desperate need of economic development.” Bluhm’s partner in the venture was George Carney, owner of the Brockton Fairgrounds.
For that reason Brockton Mayor Bill Carpenter had urged the commission to approve of the license.
Mass Gaming was the only applicant for the southeastern casino zone license.
Before the vote seven Bay State legislators wrote the commission asking it to request that the Revenue Division conduct a financial analysis of the effect of allowing the Brockton casino before issuing a license.
Their letter highlighted the elephant in the room, namely that if the Brockton casino was licensed then the $1 billion Mashpee Wampanoag tribe’s First Light Resort and Casino in Taunton would not be obligated to pay any state taxes.
This, and the fact that the tribe not paying taxes to the state was not balanced out by 25 percent taxes from Brockton may have been a major factor in the commission’s decision. The Mashpees’ tribal state gaming compact obligates them to pay the state 17 percent of gaming revenues, but only if the tribe has a monopoly on gaming in the southeastern casino zone, known as Region C. Any competition reduces that percentage to zero.
The seven lawmakers wrote, “The prospect of a tax-free casino operating within the commonwealth was not a rationale for either the Legislature’s decision to expand gaming, nor, we are sure, for the more than 1.2 million Massachusetts voters who supported our decision via referendum at the last election.”
Mass Gaming argued that its report showed that the two casinos, competing together, would generate more revenue for the state than the tribal casino competing alone.
The study was provided by the Innovation Group, which was commissioned by Neil Bluhm, owner of the Rush Street Gaming, the parent company of Mass Gaming & Entertainment.
However, the Mashpee tribe cited its own study, by the Spectrum Group, which found that Massachusetts would lose $28 million annually from the competing casinos.
During its first day of hearings the five-person commission heard one of its own come down on the side of the $28 million annual loss estimate.
Commissioner Enrique Zuniga, quoting from the Spectrum Group’s report, commented, “Their market assessment does not fully appreciate the potential magnitude of the competition.”
Each commissioner had as his or her task to rate different aspects of the project. Zuniga gave Rush Street high ratings on its ability to finance the project, but noted that when the Mashpee casino is factored in, the Brockton’s facility’s viability dropped to only “sufficient.”
Commission Chairman Stephen Crosby had described the Brockton project as a “great disappointment” due to a lack of a way to revitalize the economy of the city.
“The expanded gaming legislation made a high priority that our facilities should be ‘destination resort casinos’ with a deep commitment to associated economic development. This proposal presents a plan for a nice local convenience casino,” said Crosby.
The report projected that the Brockton casino would earn between $200 million and $245 million, considerably less than the $327 million the report commissioned by Mass Gaming projected.
Commissioner Lloyd Macdonald, reviewed building and site design, gave the project a “sufficient” grade. He added, “From the design perspective, it is a solid application, well conceived and well presented,” he said.
Brockton Casino Vote Online
However he criticized the project for lack of water conservation plans and its plans to deal with students passing by from a local high school.
The company was also required to explain about a $1.65 million fine that had been imposed on its Illinois casino for hiring a cleaning company with alleged mob connections. The company’s attorney explained that two employees were fired over the incident, the casino replaced its cleaning company and put new internal controls in place.
This prompted the commission’s Investigations and Enforcement Bureau Director Karen Wells to advise the commission to insist on a “particularly strict form of oversight to ensure these types of procedural lapses don’t occur in Massachusetts.”
The Mashpees were delighted with the news.
“That Brockton casino would’ve cannibalized the market and effectively destroyed the commercial gaming landscape and we’re excited that the Mass Gaming Commission made a difficult, but wise and just decision,” said Wampanoag Tribe Chairman Cedric Cromwell.
The commission also reviewed Mass Gaming’s request to defer the $85 million license fee because of the likelihood that the Mashpees will sue if the license is granted. The company said it doesn’t want to have its funds tied up while the litigation is decided.
The commission has the right to license four total casinos, three of which it has already authorized. The possibility of a fifth casino arose when the Mashpees encountered delays in putting their land into Taunton into trust. This led to the commission making the decision to open bidding for the Region C license to commercial developers. Now that the Mashpees have not only put land into trust but coming roaring back with a $1 billion casino backed by the Genting Group, many are calling on the commission to follow the original intent of the 2011 Gaming Expansion law for a lone Indian casino in Region C.
Although the Bureau of Indian Affairs put the Taunton land into trust last year, that decision has been challenged in federal court by several residents of Taunton. Bluhm argues that it would be risky for the state to put all of its eggs in the Taunton basket because of the possibility that the casino could be halted by a federal judge.
Wynn Boston Harbor
The commission also took up the environmental approval for the $2 billion Wynn Boston Harbor. It endorsed environmental approvals of several state agencies, a scrutiny that one spokesman said was the most that any private project has received in state history.
Brockton Casino Vote Today
The commission attached a clause to the approval that reserves for the commission the power to revisit the issue of traffic concerns at Sullivan Square in Boston’s Charlestown community and require Wynn to pay more for traffic impacts and mitigation.
That would be in addition to the $36 million that the developer is already required to pay. State Attorney General Maura Healey, who has called for the state to require more from Wynn, praised the commission for making Wynn pay “its fair share.”
A spokesman for the AG added, “We also appreciate the commission adopting our recommendation to strengthen the monitoring requirements for determining actual traffic impacts of the casino, and support the commission’s ability to impose additional traffic mitigation as necessary.”
The Wynn project is not yet ready for a groundbreaking because one more lawsuit remains, this one from Somerville Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone, who is separately appealing the Department of Environmental Protection’s approval earlier this year.
Jake Perper@JakePerperSeptember 16th, 2019 - 04:15pm@JakePerperLast Thursday, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission voted 3-1 against the proposed reconsideration that was on the table regarding the Brockton Fairgrounds casino.
This was the first vote since April 2016 when the MGC originally denied the Brockton Fairgrounds casino.
Arguments for Casino 'Insufficient'
In terms of why the vote came about, key members of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission told Brockton's newspaper, the Enterprise News, that “they have the statutory authority to reconsider past decisions, but said the reasons argued by the casino company, Mass Gaming & Entertainment, were insufficient.”
Furthermore, the fear from many commissioners of the MGC was that the reconsideration process would ultimately prove to be unfair. Specifically unfair to the other businesses and groups that could jump into the application process for the Region C license now in place in southeastern Massachusetts law.
Neil Bluhm, an American billionaire real and casino mogul worth a reported $4 billion, has been the key energy behind the Brockton Fairgrounds casino proposal.
But even he is getting worn down by this process. He told the MGC (according to Boston radio station WBUR) that he has spent millions of dollars and five years of his life and time on studies and planning with the hope and eventual plan of constructing a Brockton Faigrounds casino.
“I don’t honestly know how long you expect us to be hanging around here for Brockton,” Bluhm told the commission, the Enterprise News reported. “I don’t see why you can’t vote that you have the authority to reconsider, and then for a period of time see what interest there is for others to potentially bid on this. And then if you have no interest, then you can go back and make your decision. But to vote that you are not going to reopen this under any circumstances? I don’t know how I could continue to hang in here on behalf of Brockton.”
Bluhm Frustrated by Decision, Tired of Process
Bluhm is Chairman of the Board of Midwest Gaming & Entertainment which owns casinos in Vicksburg, Mississippi, Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Rivers Casino in Des Plaines, Illinois, and Casino Niagara in Niagara Falls, Canada.
When the 2016 decision came about Bluhm made the argument that the commission chose to do so with the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe looking to open a resort and casino roughly 15 miles away in Taunton, a city in Bristol County. Just this summer in Boston, about 25 miles north of Brockton, the Encore Boston Harbor Casino opened to great fanfare and had success right away.
All in all, Bluhm reported to Enterprise News that this proposed casino would have created $351 million in revenue annually, $55 million in gambling taxes for the state, about $10 million per year to the city of Brockton and north of $14 million for various public safety improvements. Mass Gaming & Entertainment also quoted the casino plans to have created 1,800 jobs permanently and 2,000 construction jobs.
It seems as if these plans will be shelved for quite some time and perhaps never come back as Ward 5 Councilor Anne Beauregard made it clear it is now going to be about finding alternatives for the Brockton Fairgrounds location. George Carney, a local businessman owns the spot as he teamed up with Bluhm to create Mass Gaming & Entertainment.
“I am thrilled we can finally put this to bed,” Beauregard told Enterprise News. “We can start looking at a productive use for the fairgrounds that’s advantageous to the future of the community of Brockton.”
The Brockton Fairgrounds won’t have a casino on site in the near future, but casinos elsewhere could pop up in Massachusetts. It is time to table that discussion once again.
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copy linkLink copied!WRITTEN BY@JakePerper<p>Jake Perper covers casino news for TopUSCasinos.com. A veteran of more than a decade of sports writing, he has covered the Chicago Bears for the Bears Backer blog, and his stories have also appeared on nfl.com, The Tampa Tribune, The Naples Daily News and Bleacher Report. He is also the leas scout for Prep Hoops Florida, based in Tampa.</p>... Read More<p>Jake Perper covers casino news for TopUSCasinos.com. A veteran of more than a decade of sports writing, he has covered the Chicago Bears for the Bears Backer blog, and his stories have also appeared on nfl.com, The Tampa Tribune, The Naples Daily News and Bleacher Report. He is also the leas scout for Prep Hoops Florida, based in Tampa.</p>... Read MoreARTICLES YOU MAY LIKE
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