Inside Asian Gaming

January 2015 inside asian gaming 37 Stadium Casino LLP, which will permit the operation of a second casino in Philadelphia. Stadium Casino is a joint venture between Greenwood Gaming & Entertainment, which currently operates the Parx Casino in Bucks County, Pa., and the Cordish Companies, which operates both the Maryland LIVE Casino near Annapolis and the Xfinity LIVE entertainment complex in Philadelphia. The license clears the way for the development of a standalone casino with up to 5,000 slot machines and 250 table games. Of more concern for potential New York gaming operators may be ongoing proposals to establish casino resorts in the Northern New Jersey areas of the Meadowlands Sports Complex and Liberty State Park, both right outside the New York City. For this to happen, the state will have to pass a referendum allowing casino development outside of Atlantic City, which is not as much of a longshot as it was in the past, given the seaside resort town’s crumbling fortunes. The other development hotbed in the Northeast is Massachusetts, but unlike New York, the players in this market have been largely settled. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission has already awarded two of its three allowed casino resort licenses: one to MGM Resorts International, which is developing MGM Springfield, an $800 million mixed-use project in the western Massachusetts city of the same name, and the other to Wynn Resorts, which recently won the rights to develop a $1.6 billion resort in the Boston suburb of Everett. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission has also given a license to Penn National Gaming, which is in the process of developing Plainridge Park Casino, a 1,250 slot/pari-mutuel facility located at a racetrack in the city of Plainville. The commission is also in the process of determining a winning bid for a license in the southeast of the state, with special consideration to be given to Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Tribe. The nascent Massachusetts market already has survived a referendum attempt to rescind casino legalization. However, other threats loomon the horizon. Stringent responsible gaming policies mandated by the state could dramatically curtail profits. Of more pressing concern may be proposals to expand or establish casino gaming in the border states of New Hampshire, Maine and Connecticut. The expansion plans from Connecticut, which include the possibility of a rival casino near MGM’s Springfield project, appear the most realistic, given the political and economic strength of the Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods casinos in the state and their reliance on gamblers from Massachusetts. “I think at this point, [casino expansion plans are] all preliminary,” Charles F. Bunnell, Mohegan chief of staff of external and governmental affairs, recently told the Hartford Courant newspaper. “The chairman of the Mohegan tribe, Kevin Brown, has said that he certainly is ready to have those discussions.” Reprinted with permission from Casino Journal The planned Mohegan Sun at Concord casino in upstate New York (pictured above) was one of 13 losing applicants for four New York licenses. A state panel has recommended only three of the four, in part because of fears about market saturation. Feature