Connecticut is poised to adopt Keno at more than 3,000 locations starting next year as negotiations with the state’s two Native American tribes are reaching their final stages.
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Connecticut is poised to adopt Keno at more than 3,000 locations starting next year as negotiations with the state's two Native American tribes are reaching their final stages.
While the official launch date and rollout of the bingo-like betting game hinges on the timing of an agreement between the state and the Mohegans and Mashantucket Pequots, the negotiations to allow expanded gaming in Connecticut have been going smoothly and are nearly identical to a similar deal the sides struck two years ago.
“This is a good example of the tribes and the state sitting down and working through things, and this is how it is supposed to be,” said Chuck Bunnell, chief of staff for government affairs for the Mohegan Tribe in Uncasville, who is handling the negotiations.
The state legislature adopted Keno as part of the two-year, $40.3 billion budget that passed in June, hoping that tax revenues derived from the game would decrease the need for further tax increases or cuts to services.
Once the Connecticut Lottery Corp. starts offering the game through existing and new retailers, the state wants Keno to generate $13.6 million this fiscal year and $30 million for fiscal 2017, said Gian-Carl Casa, spokesman for the Office of Policy & Management, which is handling negotiations for the state.
Those revenues, though, are based upon the game starting on time, and neither OPM nor lottery officials wanted to say when exactly that would take place until the agreements with the tribes are finalized and in hand, even though the lottery has a tentative Keno launch date of January.
The lottery has been laying all the necessary groundwork and will be able to meet that January goal once the tribal agreements are completed, said State Rep. Jeffrey Berger (D-Waterbury), who co-chairs the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee.
“We are excited about it and looking forward to people taking advantage of the game,” Berger said.
As part of their agreements to operate casinos in the state, the Mashantucket Pequots (operators of Foxwoods Resort Casino) and Mohegans (operators of Mohegan Sun) have the exclusive right to offer casino games at their venues. In exchange, the tribes each give 25 percent of their slot revenues to the state general fund.
Because Keno is a casino game, OPM and the tribes are negotiating a deal where the Mohegans and the Mashantucket Pequots receive 25 percent of the state's Keno revenues, in exchange for the tribes giving up their exclusivity rights.
The negotiations have been going smoothly, Bunnell said, as the sides are retreading the same ground they covered in 2013 when the legislature first approved Keno.
Before the lottery got a chance to implement the game in that instance, however, the legislature repealed Keno because the game's adoption in the 2014-2015 budget never received a public hearing.
That won't be an issue this time, Berger said, because the Finance, Revenue & Bonding Committee held public hearings on Keno this year and received widespread consensus for its inclusion in the 2016-2017 budget.
“It had a thorough vetting process,” Berger said.
Berger said he expects each of the tribes to approve the agreements in time for the January rollout.
The negotiations with the Mohegans have reached the final stages and only needs the tribal council to sign off on the deal, said Bunnell, who doesn't anticipate any major changes or objections before that final approval goes through.
“The meetings [with OPM] have been very productive and respectful,” Bunnell said. “I don't foresee any issues.”
Once the agreements are in place, the lottery can make Keno available at its 2,800 retailers that already exist around Connecticut. The quasi-public agency then plans to add another 400-600 retailers over time, according to what Anne Noble, lottery president and CEO, told Hartford Business Journal after the Keno measure passed in June.
Once fully implemented, the lottery expects Keno to generate up to $300 million annually for the agency. That ramp-up will go quickly, too, because the lottery already explored the necessary software and game rules two years ago.
The returns for the state's coffers could be higher than the $30 million annually anticipated starting in fiscal 2017, Berger said.
Once the lottery adds more vendors to accommodate Keno, those vendors then can sell the lottery's other products, too, like scratch-off tickets and draw games like Mega Millions, said Berger. That should increase the lottery's revenues and its contribution to state government.
“We're out to get more new vendors up and running and getting the whole game up and running,” Berger said. “That attributes revenue directly to us.”
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