Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods Resort Casino need to watch their backs. A bill to reopen the state’s casino-award process has made it to the floor of the Connecticut House. The word of the state, it seems, is not worth the paper on which it’s written. The bill would allow open bidding for a fourth Connecticut casino (no site specified) for which tribes and commercial interests could apply never mind that this runs a cart and horses through the Mashantucket Pequots‘ and Mohegans‘ compact with the state, imperiling $250 million a year in revenue. Never mind that it shows yet again that tribes can’t trust The Man: Greed is on the rampage in Hartford. The bill passed out of committee 18-7, so its chances in the larger House look good.
The bill is the baby of a trio of Democratic solons from Bridgeport, where MGM Resorts International wants to put a casino. The only concession they have made to the tribe is to remove language that would betray the tribes further by revoking their permission to build a casino in East Windsor. The latter is still entangled in Trump administration red tape and inaction. This led committee co-chair Rep. Joe Verrengia (D) to harrumph, “I’m not willing to wait five years for a decision to come down on whether or not that casino may or may not happen.” The Pequots and Mohegans continue to toil away at the East Windsor site, regardless of the shameful antics of the Lege. And if you detect the fine hand of MGM CEO Jim Murren in this, you’re not wrong. It was his proposal to invest $675 million in a Bridgeport casino that got the conversation started.
In other Connecticut news, Foxwoods has opened its 33-story, four-line HighFlyer Zipline. Between Las Vegas‘ Slotzilla and the zipline coming the Linq Promenade, it seems like you’re not a gaming destination if you don’t have one of these things. Foxwoods’ version whisks you to the Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center, so you can have a quick thrill and then take in some history. (Is that ‘sweetening the pill’?) Foxwoods hints at additional thrill rides on the horizon but more than that it will not say.
* Tilman Fertitta has an appetite for risk. We know that because he’s in the casino business. And, in what’s becoming a ritual, he took a $25,000 bet from Derek Stevens that the University of Michigan Wolverines will win the NCAA title. Odds are 40-1, meaning that Tilman will have to fork over $1 million if Stevens wins his wager.
