Little hope seen for Lamont gaming deal
We’d like to think Connecticut came close to a grand bargain to resolve its long-running casino stalemate this spring. The details make as much sense as anything else we’ve seen in five springtime legislative sessions, but alas, with a week left in the regular season, a deal appears dead.
Under a pact Gov. Ned Lamont’s office tried to work out, the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes — operating as MMCT — would drop their plan to build a midsize casino along Interstate 91 in East Windsor, 13 miles south of the MGM Springfield casino that opened last summer.
In exchange, the tribes would win the right to build a casino in Bridgeport. And MGM Resorts International, which proposed a $675 million casino resort on Bridgeport Harbor, would walk away without a fight and without the threat of a lawsuit.
Connecticut would also usher in sports betting with four purveyors running the action in-person and online: the two tribes, the quasipublic Connecticut Lottery Corp. and Sportech, which creates gaming technology and operates 16 Winners and Bobby V’s off-track betting locations in Connecticut.
That’s as good a compromise as we’ve seen in five years, during which some of us have been saying there’s no way out of this rigor mortis without a negotiated deal. More to the point, Lamont’s complex deal would have jolted Connecticut out of the gambling blues, where we’re stagnating as the states around us advance their strategies.
Unfortunately it fell apart, according to multiple sources familiar with the negotiations. The tribes — especially the Pequots, who own Foxwoods Resort Casino — wouldn’t agree to drop East Windsor, which won final state approval in 2017.
The tribes also remain steadfast that they alone must control sports betting in Connecticut, under a 1992 (revised for Mohegan in 1996) compact with the state that gives them an exclusive duopoly over all “casino games” — including, in the tribes’ view, sports betting.
My sources didn’t explicitly say MGM would agree to exit a plan so close to the heart of its chairman and CEO, Jim Murren, who was raised in and around Bridgeport, and whose mother still lives there. MGM, which must, by now, have spent millions on lobbying, design and land options, isn’t commenting. But logic says the governor’s office would not spend months trying to hammer out a deal with one party when the main counter-party wouldn’t have it.
Where all this leaves Bridgeport is an open question, as the city fervently — not quite desperately — looks for an anchor to its long-held goal of building an economy around entertainment. The state’s largest city appears to need a casino in its borders more than either MGM, which owns the Empire Casino at Yonkers Raceway in Westchester County, or the tribes, which count on a flow of customers from New York and the Connecticut shoreline.
The hope was that Lamont would be able to pull it off. Alas, the barriers appear too great. Here’s the stark reality:
Connecticut has two options when it comes to a comprehensive gaming strategy. We unite behind the duopoly, let the tribes build what they want, where they want, feeding the massive, overbuilt reservation motherships in remote southeastern Connecticut. That would mean lawsuits by MGM and other spurned players.
Or we can ditch the vintage compact that gives the state 25 percent of gross slot revenue ($240 million a year and falling) and cast our bet with a wide range of players in commercial casinos, sports wagering, online gambling and whatever else the industry invents. That would mean the end of free money from the tribes.
Instead of embracing either imperfect option, we’re doing what we do best — fighting so no one wins and we all lose as every surrounding state moves ahead. That’s pretty much how we’ve handled legalizing marijuana, come to think of it. That has been our go-to bet so far.
“The East Windsor thing is probably the stickiest point,” said House Majority Leader Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, Wednesday morning.
Sticky, that is, for two reasons. First, it was conceived and approved with the explicit goal of picking off customers heading to MGM Springfield.
That means MMCT could build something that fades over time and the partnership could fail to gain the $300 million it needs. MMCT isn’t commenting, though the tribes’ partnership says it’s closer to breaking ground in East Windsor, where it demolished an old Showcase movie theater last year.
The second problem is that MGM can refile its 2016 federal lawsuit whenever it wants, claiming the state violated its rights by handing MMCT a license without any form of competition, as most states have done. “It’s not a frivolous case,” Ritter said.
House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, ever the optimist, said he’s holding out hope of a deal, perhaps a bill, that can pass during the legislative session that ends next Wednesday or a special session later. Parties were still talking Wednesday, he said, though the governor’s grand bargain is not still on the table, I’m told by multiple sources.
Before I put money on a new deal or a bill that can pass, I’ll bet the trifecta at the June 8 Belmont Stakes with Tax and Spinoff, both horses 25-1, in the money.
Speaking of taxes and spinoffs, Sportech and the Lottery Corp. both want in on sports betting, one year after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for states to set up shop.
“Sportech ... stands ready to engage in delivering fair and reasonable legislation that benefits Bridgeport and our State,” Executive Chairman Richard McGuire said in a written statement from Sportech’s North American headquarters in New Haven. “However, Sportech also has a duty to be prepared to challenge any unconstitutional and unlawful actions that create an unfair advantage for others to the detriment of our company and its 400 Connecticut employees.”
Greg Smith, the CT Lottery president and CEO, said, “The Connecticut Lottery brought forward a good sports betting plan with multiple operators, which showed that the Lottery would provide the greatest returns to the state.”
We’re not any closer to seeing whether he’s right. We’re not any closer to anything, come to think of it.