Brockton casino’s project trashed by the Commission’s chairman

Stephen Crosby, Massachusetts Gaming Commission chairman critiques Mass Gaming & Entertainment’s US$677 million project.

US.- The controversial Brockton casino received quite an unfavourable review by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission’s chairman, Stephen Crosby, just before the commission is to vote on the project’s licensing.

In a presentation, Crosby described the US$677 million project from Mass Gaming & Entertainment as a “convenience casino” that does little to differentiate itself, does not adequately pay homage to what would be its host city or the state adding that the casino be unlikely to improve the surrounding area.

The chairman also said Rush Street Gaming, a Midwest casino company that partnered with Brockton businessman George Carney to form Mass Gaming & Entertainment, had demonstrated elsewhere that it could operate a casino that might meet the commission’s standards, but that it had failed to make its case in its Massachusetts application.

“The facility itself is isolated from the community, and is basically inward rather than outward looking,” reads Crosby’s presentation. “Most restaurants for example cannot be reached from outside the casino. The approach of the applicant seemed to be: ‘We will do good things. Just trust us.”

Crosby compared the project with the planned MGM casino in Springfield, which is integrated into several blocks of the city and was well-received by the commission when it was approved in 2014. “This proposal has virtually none of those features,” the presentation continues. “It sits in the middle of a vast parking lot, completely isolated from any other operating part of the community, with no links or coherent strategies for broader urban renewal or economic development. In this respect, it is a great disappointment.”