Gaming Expansion Moves Step Closer

A key state legislative committee advanced a measure to expand gaming in the state beyond Connecticut’s tribal nation reservations. “As long as it’s going to create some jobs in the state of Connecticut, I’m for it,” says State Senator Ed Gomes. “Bridgeport has lost a lot of jobs. We have a lot of people out of work.”

The CT Mirror has more:

But while the state legislature’s Public Safety and Security Committee endorsed the measure by a wide margin, it narrowly rejected an amendment that would have barred the state from offering loans, grants or other economic aid to preserve casino jobs.

The Democrat-controlled panel voted 15-8 to adopt the measure with bipartisan support. It now heads to the Senate, though it likely will be referred from there to other committees.

If enacted, the bill would allow the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes–which operate the Foxwoods Resorts Casinos and Mohegan Sun casino, respectivel–jointly to open up to three gaming parlors to compete with new casinos recently opened, or under development, in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York.

Full story here.

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6 comments

  1. What have the mega-casinos done for the state? For that matter, what have they done regionally? Is New London happy to have the casinos in their neck of the woods?

    How many permanent jobs will a small casino create in Bridgeport? How many pockets (of working-poor/underemployed/unemployed Bridgeporters) will it empty? How will it affect crime? Will the downward trend in crime continue in the face of what the casinos will take from us–as well as the negatives it will bring to us?

    Come on, Senator Gomes! Use your fire for your constituents, your experience, and your industrial/union contacts to bring some real, positive, permanent, manufacturing jobs to Bridgeport. Jobs that will fill our pockets, not empty them!

    And please don’t say it is impossible to bring manufacturing back to Bridgeport. That has been the prevalent attitude in this city and state. The can’t-do attitude–and it is destructive and disgusting!

    We all expect better from our elected representatives for ourselves, especially from you, Senator! (We know what Dan Malloy wants for Bridgeport–but how about our elected representatives and friends in Hartford?)

    Industria Crescimus! Right?

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  2. At this stage of the game the casino in Bridgeport will fail. Where will they draw their patrons from? It will most likely be filled by the local poor. It will go the way of jai alai. Start out great and dwindle as time goes by. If play has dropped off dramatically at the casinos, why would it be a winner here? This will give people more ammunition to say something else failed in Bridgeport.

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  3. I have great respect for the above two posters. However, I strongly disagree.

    Jeff, in many of your points regarding jobs and manufacturing I do agree with a new economy of manufacturing. We need educated skill-set employees trained in these fields. Similar to the greatest generation of high school educated workforce that had the best tool and die workers in the country. Let the joy stick become the micrometer of past manufacturing.

    However, to discount the effects of a service-driven economy is a little shortsighted. I know plenty of dinks (double-income-no-kids) who work in hospitality who do very well.

    Andy, Jai Alai best handle year was in 1989. Surely you can recall spending some time in the fronton wheeling the two in the Concha Lounge. The Fronton for many years paid a percentage of their handle in double taxation to the city. The best year was in 1989 until a labor strike by the Players shuttered the Frontons in Connecticut! Our two hotels every weekend were booked with Jai Alai packages. Talk about jobs! Remember the overtime that was paid to cops and maybe firemen?

    Poor people can’t afford to gamble in a convenience gaming facility. Poor people play the daily numbers and there are more people with bad gambling problems playing scratch-off tickets I call “Cardboard Crack.” Go to any convenience store and you will witness this behavior that crosses all socioeconomic lines.

    Not everyone who gambles is a problem gambler! More funds need to be made available for all people with gambling problems.

    A convenience gaming facility at Shoreline Star would help promote the retail strategy now linked to Steel Pointe or however it is spelled. It would create the Ying and the Yang of a push-pull effect to bring more customers to Bridgeport. Also, do not discount the volumes of people who come across the pond on the BPJ ferry soon to be relocated across the harbor.

    In 2007 we received 11 million dollars from the state compact fund. This year it will be closed to six million. The Host Community would get additional money and be the immediate and direct beneficiary of Personal Business Property taxes on 1500-1800 slot machines coupled with any other equipment.

    I think Bridgeport needs Slots of Luck and hope our Mayor and the delegation will get off the dime!

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  4. I hate to pop everybody’s bubble but it must be done! The State of Connecticut has a contract with the Federal government (compact) where it is agreed those two tribes must ONLY CONDUCT GAMING ON THEIR TRIBAL LANDS. To do other would be a breach of contract. If they were to conduct gaming off-site it must be done as a non-Indian business. If the State were to offer this, they must offer the concept to all.
    To do otherwise would violate the 14th amendment to the constitution, DUE PROCESS AND FAIR AND EQUAL TREATMENT UNDER THE LAW!

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