Tribal Company Seeks to Build Third Vegas-style casino
MMCT, a Mohegan-Mashantucket Pequot casino company has re-opened its RFP process and is now seeking a location for a new casino in Connecticut to compete with MGM Springfield.
In an interview, Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Council Chairman Rodney Butler and Mohegan Tribal Council Chairman Kevin Brown said that they had reopened the application process with a new deadline of 15 October to consider amended proposals from the current applicants.
A study funded by both tribes suggested out-of-state casino competition could cost Connecticut 9,300 jobs. Mohegan Tribal Council Chairman Kevin Brown has described the project as in direct competition with MGM Springfield, which is scheduled to open in late 2018.
“This process began to preserve thousands of jobs and millions in revenue which will leave (Connecticut), the loss of which MGM has repeatedly acknowledged is necessary to make their project in Springfield a success,” Brown explained in a statement last year. “As members of communities with deep ties to this state, we’re simply not going to let that happen without a fight.”
“This isn’t a process – it’s a sham,” Alan M. Feldman, Executive Vice president of MGM Resorts International said in a statement last week. “It is being run by MMCT, not the state, and MMCT is running it for its own purposes. Deadlines are set, then they’re missed. Towns are added, then subtracted. Unrealistic job numbers are created out of thin air, then thrown around with impunity. We’re told this is a ‘satellite casino,’ then when information is pried loose we see renderings of a casino larger than anything in Las Vegas. A ‘process’ like this is exactly how you end up with a baseball stadium that is unfinished, empty, and tens of millions of dollars over budget.”
Once the deadline passes MMCT will review the applicants and announce finalist sites. The new casino must also receive authorization from the state legislature.
