Legalizing casinos was supposed to have been all about the money – cold, hard cash for state coffers and jobs for the unemployed.
So why in the world are Gov. Deval Patrick and other leaders bending over backyards to support the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe’s quixotic quest to build a Foxwoods-style gambling palace?
Sadly, straight talk is in short supply right now about the tribe’s seemingly open-ended pursuit of federal approval to open an official reservation in southeastern Massachusetts on which to build a grand gambling palace.
Patrick is scrambling to negotiate a new casino deal with the tribe – the first having been spurned by the feds – while his newly-minted state gaming commission is likely poised to give the tribe yet more time to pursue its dreams.
Yet time is money, and all this coddling of the tribe and its deep-pocketed Malaysian gambling backers could cost Bay State taxpayers dearly; up to a billion in lost casino revenue.
Worse yet, it could also cost southeastern Massachusetts and its hard-hit old industrial cities like New Bedford a crack at a badly needed mega-development project.
A Sweetheart Deal?
Backed by Asian casino tiger Genting Group, the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe was handed a sweet deal when Massachusetts finally legalized casino gambling in November 2011.
While casino developers have to duke it out for the state’s other two licenses, the Mashpees were all but assured a monopoly over Southeastern Massachusetts if they met certain deadlines.
It was quite a plum for a tribe that has been pushing unsuccessfully for years for a casino, and with little to show for it, since winning federal recognition in 2007. Nor did the legislation take into account the fact the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that tribes recognized after 1934, such as the Mashpees, can’t create new, federally-protected reservations on which to build casinos.
Now, more than two years after Massachusetts passed its big casino bill, the Mashpees appear no measurably closer to their ultimate goal of spawning a Foxwoods-style gambling palace than it did when Massachusetts gave Las Vegas-style gambling a green light.
The tribe inked a compact with Patrick last year – one of the few requirements in the casino bill – only to see it and its 25 percent revenue sharing agreement struck down by the Bureau of Indian Affairs as too hard on the Mashpees and too generous to Bay State taxpayers.
A new deal is in the works, but at most it might require the tribe to fork over 17 percent of its revenue to the state; commercial casino developers bidding for the state’s other two licenses, are required to pay 25 percent.
But that’s if the tribe ever wins federal approval to create a reservation on which to build a casino – a process that could easily take several more years to a decade, critics say.
Time To Pull The Plug?
The good news is the state’s newly-minted casino regulator, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, will meet to review March 21 to review the tribe’s progress.
The bad news is the commission is unwilling, at least just yet, to bite the bullet and open up bidding on the license to commercial casinos developers, one of which is battling in court for a shot at the deal.
The hesitancy, though, is all about politics, with the governor, who appointed the commission’s chairman, having spent years trying to bring home a casino deal for the Mashpees. Having just flown down to Washington to try to sell the BIA on the new deal, it’s unlikely Patrick will let his new gaming commission pull the rug out from under him.
Yet time is money here.
Let’s say it takes the Mashpees another seven to 10 years to get their long-hoped-for tribal casino – about average and based on similar cases involving the byzantine, slow-moving and chronically understaffed BIA.
That’s 10 years of lost casino revenue – 10 years in which a commercial casino developer could be paying $100 million or more each year into our state’s cash-strapped coffers, notes Clyde Barrow, director of the Center for Policy Analysis at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
The math is simple and compelling – that’s at least a billion over the next decade, probably more.
Of course, if the commission were to open the door to a commercial casino, some years down the line the tribe might eventually land its reservation and open as casino anyway.
At that point, there would be nothing legally Massachusetts could do to stop the Mashpees – we would end up with four casinos across the state instead of three.
But that is all based on the precarious assumption that the tribe is eventually successful, and success is hardly guaranteed here.
In fact, the courts, if anything, keep making it harder for casino hungry tribes to open the next Foxwoods or Mohegan Sun.
The latest federal ruling, this one out of the Midwest involving another tribe seeking a casino, has extended out for years the ability of abutting land owners to bring a lawsuit.
So what does mean? Well, even if the Mashpees managed to get federal approval for a Taunton reservation on which to build a casino, neighboring landowners and others in the community would have up to six years to file a lawsuit challenging the project.
That could extend the haggling for years more, while putting a little fear into potential investors.
Someday, someone is going to have to call the Mashpees’ bluff.
And at a price tag of $100 million a year in lost casino revenue, let’s hope that day comes sooner rather than later.
Email: sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com
