Massachusetts to decide on Brockton casino

The state Gaming Commission will determine this week whether to award Massachusetts’ third and final gambling license.

US.- The Massachusetts Gaming Commission will decide if the state will award a gambling license to a developer seeking to build a US$677 million resort on the Brockton Fairgrounds.

Chicago casino developer Neil Bluhm, proposes a gambling complex with 2,100 slot machines, 124 table games, a 250-room hotel and a range of restaurant, bar and entertainment options. His company, Rush Street Gaming, operates casinos in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh among other cities. Bluhm affirms that a former manufacturing city of roughly 93,000 residents like Brockton, would benefit from the 2,000 temporary construction jobs and the 1,800 permanent casino jobs his project would bring.”They’re in desperate need of economic development,” Bluhm said.

The development would join MGM’s US$950 million Springfield casino and Wynn’s US$2 billion complex in the Boston-area if it is awarded with the state’s third license to a non-tribal casino project. The decision is more complicated than it appears at first as the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe broke ground last month on a projected US$1 billion project on newly declared sovereign land in nearby Taunton. Under the compact agreed between the state and the tribe, the Mashpee Wampanoag would pay the state 17 percent of its gambling revenues, but only if no other casino is allowed to open in the southeastern region.

Tomorrow (Tuesday,) it begins a multi-day review of the project and then the five-member panel is expected to vote as soon as Thursday. In light of the Mashpee Wampanoag compact, state legislators have called on the gaming commission to postpone the Brockton casino vote.