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Industry Stakeholders Converge for New England Gambling Conference

Posted on September 23rd, 2010

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After establishing itself in areas such as the South, Las Vegas and Atlantic City, the gambling industry in the United States is looking for another location to utilize as its expansion area. To this end, it looks like the region of New England is shaping up to be the latest scene for casinos to be in. Legislation has just started to sway in favor of the industry bringing with it the promise of new jobs and revenue for the government and the residents allowing for a stronger econom. The wave of popularity of the gambling industry in New England has prompted sectors to organize an event that would bring together players of the burgeoning sector to discuss their future in the area. The first New England Gaming Summit was put together by the casino industry media group BNP Media and Spectrum Gaming Group, a research firm. For two days, from September 20 to 21, various sectors, such as business executives, lawyers, lawmakers of the different states and industry insiders converged at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, CT to discuss the prospects of the industry in New England.

The group publisher of BNP Media Gaming Group, Charles Anderer, was quoted in saying, “It will be kind of an information dump on gaming. We’d like to put out as much information on the market as possible.” Anderer said that one of the main reasons the conference was held in New England is because despite the rapid growth of the industry there, efforts to further casino gambling in one of the states in the area, Massachusetts, met a legislative-executive stumbling block, causing the efforts to fail. Anderer adds, “There’s still a lot of legislative uncertainty there, but dealing with gaming regionally makes a lot of sense.” Another topic in the conference is how to boost profits at a time when the national economy is not expanding, making people hold on to their cash as tightly as possible and doing away with expendable expenses such as casino spending. For this, Anderer commented, “One of my first questions is that this is the new normal for the economy, but what’s the new normal for gaming? Is it being modified or defined downward?”

With legislation in the states of New England finally giving the industry the green light, development of casinos and expanded gaming facilities have doubled in just the last months. Connecticut now has two casinos, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, both operated by Native American groups. Rhode Island, despite being the smallest state in the entire country, has two parlors for slot machines, Twin River and Newport Grand. The General Assembly has also passed legislation to let people decide on casino gambling through a referendum in November. However, the bill was vetoed by Don Carcieri, the governor. Meanwhile, in New Hampshire, the two houses of congress may have seemed to disagree on gambling as a solution to fix the state’s budget gap. While the Senate threw their support for a bill to have 10,000 video slot machines installed in four sites in the state, the House went a different direction and killed the bill.

New Hampshire Sen. Lou D’Allesandro, the chairman of the Senate Finance committee and is among the speakers of the conference added, “If you look at it as part of the solution to deal with the fiscal situation, then I think it’s the smart thing to do.” Another portion of gambling that is being pushed to be legalized is online poker. US Digital Gaming, which sells products like a screener to weed out underage players from entering gambling sites, was represented by Richard D. Bronson, its chairman. He claims that a “massive amount of play and taxes” can be generated by inline poker. Moreover, this online game can be regulated by the states. The congregation of players in the casino industry also showed that there are already a good number of sectors in the industry, and thus a l9ot of competition. Rodney Butler, the chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot tribal council, said opportunities for competition must be something the conference’s participants should be ready for. He said, “In this new era, it’s not as simple as ‘build it and they will come. It’s definitely a different market out there.”