30-second summary

• MGM Springfield was the first resort casino in Massachusetts to open, in August 2018
• The casino had revenues of almost $100m (£78m) through the end of 2018
• Early
  problems included underage gamblers on the casino floor
• Latest figures show a significant increase in crime in its area

Opening of the MGM Springfield

Massachusetts made commercial casinos legal in 2011, but it was seven years before a casino was up and running. That was the MGM Springfield, one of the three casino resorts allowed under the Expanded Gaming Act.

Specialties: MGM Springfield is a new 240 room hotel and casino located in downtown Springfield. It features 74,000 square feet of gaming, 34,000 square feet of meeting space, movie theater, bowling alley. Dining choices include The. Random Number Generator (RNG): A computer inside each machine that ensures a random outcome every time. Pay Table: In Massachusetts as in most other jurisdictions, pay tables must be available on every single slot machine. Pay tables can be found in physical or digital format on the machine itself.

The Encore Harbor Casino has one of the other licenses but has been experiencing serious issues. The final license is still up for grabs. The Mashpee Wampanoag tribe is trying to get that third available license through court action.

The MGM Springfield opened on August 24, 2018. This led to the creation of 3,000 new jobs and it will be a big boost for the local economy, as well as attracting more tourists to the region. Of course, Massachusetts will benefit from the tax revenues.

The project cost almost $1bn (£776m) to complete. The local government believes that the casino will pay as much as $100m annually in taxes. What’s more, the casino resort is built on re-purposed land that had been hard hit by a tornado in 2011.

The MGM Springfield has more than 2,500 slot machines and more than 100 gaming tables. A 250-room hotel has all of the usual entertainment and dining facilities.

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In its first week of operations, the casino brought in about $9.5m (£7.4m). Slot machines made up most of this revenue with $7.3m (£5.7m). The state taxes the gambling revenues at 25{c04af9bb4513392e846c158e4a806a4131295f36b5625c0f8403d7bb84a86a84}, which brought in almost $100m (£78m) from its opening to the end of the calendar year.

Some teething problems

The casino faced some problems at the start of operations. Among them was an issue of underage gamblers getting onto the casino floor. This was blamed on the large numbers of people visiting the newly open casino.

The design of the casino floor was another problem because the restaurant and shopping areas in the resort provide very easy access to the floor of the casino. Management has been looking at ways to curb this issue.

With concerns about problem gambling in the local area and the state as a whole, some new policies have been established. All casino staff members are now trained to help them spot those who may be suffering from problem gambling. They now have the skills and knowledge about what they need to do in this situation.

Worrying crime figures

Now there is another significant problem for the MGM Springfield. According to the local police, the casino is a magnet for crime.

A report from the ABC television affiliate WCVB said that the area of the casino is seeing double the amount of crime in its initial four months than the other major casino in the state saw in an entire year. This other establishment is the Plainridge Park Casino, which is run by Penn National.

According to figures from the Massachusetts State Police, there were 208 incidents and 120 arrests inside the MGM Springfield from September through December. That included 16 robberies and larcenies, 5 assaults, and 2 sexual offenses. There were 22 crimes in the area in the three months before opening. In the following five months, there were 115 crimes.

In the entire year of 2018, there were 115 incidents at the Plainridge Park Casino.

A report is expected in March about public safety in the area of the facility. Since Plainridge Park opened in June 2015, there has been no uptick in crime levels. This clearly cannot be said for the MGM Springfield. A lot of work needs to be done to curb this issue in the future.

New gaming commissioner

Stephen Crosby suddenly resigned as chairperson of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission in September 2018. Gayle Cameron has been serving as interim chairperson since then.

Governor Charlie Baker has now appointed Cathy Judd-Stein as the new commissioner. She is being thrown in at the deep end as issues continue with the Encore Boston Harbor Casino and now the concerns about safety at the MGM Springfield.

Massachusetts’ three casinos — MGM Springfield, Encore Boston Harbor and Plainridge Park — are working to reopen with Encore using June 29 as its target with the understanding that the date could change.

Each operator also told state regulators Thursday that they’ll need at least two weeks to reconfigure the gambling floor to spread out slot machines and ensure gamblers at table games are far enough away from each other to insure social distancing. Employees will also have to be brought back and retrained.

MGM Springfield stayed away from a specific target date, only saying it is working to welcome its guests.

And, as Massachusetts Gaming Commission Interim Executive Director Karen Wells said Thursday, two weeks from June 29 is just a few days from now, Monday June 15, giving the casinos just a few days to find out the specifics of how their operations will have to change in the COVID-19 environment. And Massachusetts Gaming Commissioners worked toward a reopening plan, but didn’t finalize it Thursday.

The commission’s focus is on social distancing, health, hygiene, safety and reporting measures for each casino.

The three casinos have been closed since March 15 with most employees furloughed.

Meanwhile casinos are opening up all over the country. In neighboring Connecticut, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation and the Mohegan Tribe reopened Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun at the beginning of this month. Twin River Casino in Lincoln, Rhode island is open by invitation only.Rivers Casino & Resort in Schenectady, New York, is still closed.

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission said Thursday it needs more guidance from the state about the need for six-foot distancing between slot machines and if that’s dependent on on other barriers being in place or if that distance can be lessened of other barriers are not in place.

Commissioners reached a consensus on requiring Plexiglas barriers for blackjack and for similar games, but stopped short of requiring the shields for poker, craps and roulette because the shields — common in groceries and retail locations — might prove too cumbersome to use effectively.

There was also much discussion of mask requirements and if hand sanitizer should be mandatory or just available. Commissioners discussed the dangers of handling cards and passing them back and fort.. What about chips handled and lost by one gambler getting paid out as winnings to the next gambler almost immediately?

“What we are trying to do is to layer as many provisions as are feasible in order to minimize the overall risk,” said commissioner Enrique Zuniga. “We are not going to bring down the risk to zero. Let’s face it. That’s true for every other industry. What we are left with is the workability of each precaution.”

Brian Gullbrants, president of Encore Boston Harbor, said said Encore’s already started making prepartions with plans to install barriers on all regular blackjack games but not on other games and not on the casino 's high roller games.

MGM Springfield executives said they’d planned to install Plexiglas at some, but no all games so it would be the patron’s choice whether to play with or without a barrier.

Even under the most strict rules under consideration by the commission, slot gaming positions at MGM Springfield would be reduced to 589 out of 1,768 before the restrictions. That would allow for two disabled machines between each operating machine.

Allowing for only one disable machine, MGM Springfield would have room for 884 slot players out of 1,768.

Slot capacity at Encore goes to 935 out of 2,804 with two disabled machines between each operating machine. It’s 1,402 out of 2,804 at Encore every other machine to be disabled.

Slot gaming positions at Plainridge are calculated at approx. 440 out of 1,320 allowing for two disabled machines between each operating machine. A six foot minimum distancing between slot machines allows for a total of approx. 385 slot positions. There is room for 660 out of 1,320, operating machines with which every other machine to be disabled, according to the gaming commission.

The commission is considering reducing the number of roulette players at MGM Springfield to 24 if there are three players maximum per roulette table but there could be as few as nine roulette players if there are just three allowed per row in order to keep them distanced.

There was also discussion about how how best to pay off winners. Should cash be counted into the hand? On to a table or surface?

Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno and Timothy Sheehan, the city;'s chief development officer, said they’ve been kept up to date on MGM Springfield’s reopening plans.

Sheehan said MGM Springfield is working with an epidemiologists, making sure its precautions mesh with the latest science .

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