Indiscriminate dissemination by Sands Bethlehem of $45 free-play slot cards is having some interesting effects on Bethlehem itself. It’s brought about an influx of largely Chinese-American players but not all are there to play. Some pay $15 for a round-trip bus ticket, sell their card to players for $40 and pocket the rest in lieu of income. For all those for whom going to Bethlehem is a way of life, there are many others for whom it’s a means of living.
This is detailed in a superb, in-depth piece by Matt Assad and Pamela Lehman of The Morning Call. Sands Bethlehem’s workforce boasts a strong number of Chinese-American dealers and other front-of-house personnel, prompting Bethlehem Mayor Robert Donchez to say, “We’re talking about people who seem to love our city and want to buy homes here, Why wouldn’t we welcome that?” Maybe so, but the transient population is not such a big hit with City Hall, which would like to see less of the improvised housing shown above, let alone “picking food from gardens and plucking wildlife from the canal.” Meanwhile, Sands appears to be in no danger of running short of players who will buy up free-play cards and gamble them, so it’s got no worries.
Add the editorial page of the Boston Herald to those who can’t make sense of Mayor 
Martin J. Walsh‘s rampage against the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. If all he wanted was to obtain the best surrounding-community agreement for Beantown, that’s his responsibility to the voters. However, by pushing for host-community status, Walsh (right) risks losing both Wynn Boston and Mohegan Sun at the ballot box. “Walsh has a rather unusual style of negotiating,” if he’s pro-casino, opines the Herald. “Thousands of jobs are at stake, which is something we’d assume Walsh would have at the top of his mind.”
To the west, city officials are getting a little greedy in Longmeadow. They’re demanding that MGM Resorts International fork over $850,000 up front plus $275,000 a year. That’s way out of line with MGM’s other surrounding-community. The casino giant, by contrast, offered $100,000 up front, plus $200,000-$800,000 for traffic mitigation. An alternative payment structure with a cumulative value of $1.6 million was also on the table — and rejected. MGM and Longmeadow now go to arbitration.
To the south, the lion is letting no grass grow beneath its feet at National Harbor. An April groundbreaking is on the table. “Our team is prepared to move dirt in the next three weeks, before the end of April,” President Lorenzo Creighton told the Maryland Lottery & Gaming Control Commission. And no wonder: MGM expects this to be a huge moneymaker, so the sooner they get started the sooner they can start collecting greenbacks. Site planning and rezoning have yet to be completed. Still, the six-month incubation period from election to groundbreaking is light speed compared to Massachusetts, where regulators are visiting Springfield this week.
