The tribes that own and operate Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos say they aren’t pushing lawmakers to insert language into the budget that would allow them to bypass federal approval to move ahead with an East Windsor casino.
Ken Salazar, an attorney for rival MGM, which wants to build a Bridgeport casino and is set to open a $950 million casino in nearby Springfield next year, wrote in a letter to Attorney General George Jepsen that the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan Tribes are trying to amend a state gaming law passed earlier this year that teed up the process for a commercial casino to be built on non-tribal land, the blog Only in Bridgeport reported.
The law, as written, requires the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs to approve amendments to the state’s gaming compacts with the tribes, which govern the payment of several hundred million dollars a year to the state’s coffers.
Specifically, Salazar — a former secretary of the bureau’s parent agency, the U.S. Department of the Interior — said the tribes are pushing for language that would bypass the requirement for bureau approval.
The tribes, pursuing an East Windsor casino under a joint entity called MMCT, said Wednesday morning that “reports of a ‘fix’ for the East Windsor casino in the budget are completely false.”
“They know we don’t need a legislative change, and all the letters in the world from Mr. Salazar don’t change that fact,” MMCT spokesman Andrew Doba said in a statement. “Federal law makes it clear that if [the Department of the Interior] does not reject an application, it is deemed approved. DOI did not reject our application. We are taking steps to make that point crystal clear and may have much more to say on this issue in the very near future.”
MGM is opening in 2018 a $950 million casino in Springfield, Mass., which is expected to sap revenues from Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods. The two Connecticut casinos joined forces to open a casino in East Windsor to thwart the competition.
