It was viewed as a limited casino expansion projected to blunt the loss of gambling business to Springfield, not grow gaming revenue in Connecticut.īridgeport MGM would include 2,000 slot machines, 160 table games, a 700-seat theater and a 300-room hotel. The General Assembly justified approval of the East Windsor casino without an open competition, because granting a commercial license to anyone other than than tribes would abrogate the revenue-sharing deal. Clinton said the precedent already has been set by Connecticut’s authorizing the East Windsor casino. No casino has ever opened under a commercial casino license granted directly by legislative action, as MGM is asking now. At a “market gaming tax rate” not named, MGM says its gaming tax payment on its Bridgeport revenues would top the $296.4 million the tribes paid in 2013.

MGM is projecting, though not promising, to exceed the lost revenue. MGM’s rendering of its Bridgeport proposal.Īpproval of an MGM casino in Bridgeport would free the tribes of their obligation to share the slots revenue. MGM’s rendering of its Bridgeport proposal. The payments have dropped from a high of $407 million in 2007, the year before the recession, to about $260 million in the face of competition from surrounding states. Under a deal struck in the early 1990s, the tribes agreed to annually pay the state 25 percent of its gross slots revenues in return for exclusivity. Nedra Darling, a spokeswoman for the Department of the Interior on Indian issues, had no immediate comments on the questions raised by Black’s letter: Why can’t the department rule on the request for approval of the amendment to the compacts? What further information is necessary?

Heller’s office did not respond to an email asking if the senator had asked the BIA to write the new letter. Dean Heller, R-Nevada, who had tried to block the East Windsor casino with a defense authorization amendment banning tribes from developing casinos off tribal lands. But it is necessary, if the project is to go forward under existing Connecticut law.Ī copy of the letter was sent to U.S.

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