Over the next five days, the state’s top gambling regulators will tackle their most important assignment: weigh the merits of competing casino plans for Greater Boston, and pick a winner for the state’s most lucrative gambling license.
If the decision tilts on financial issues, the smart bet is Wynn Resorts Ltd., proposing a five-star slice of Las Vegas on the Mystic River waterfront in Everett. The prosperous international gambling company stands on firmer financial ground, and would spend substantially more on the bricks and mortar of its development, according to a Globe analysis.
But the Massachusetts Gaming Commission’s weeklong deliberations, beginning Monday, will unfold in many layers and consider criteria more suited to the strengths of Mohegan Sun’s casino proposal at the Suffolk Downs racetrack in Revere. The experienced regional operator, boasting that its Connecticut flagship is “the highest grossing casino in the Western Hemisphere,” brings a database of local customers, a product designed for mass appeal, and a more congenial corporate temperament. Billions of gambling dollars and the destinies of two struggling cities are at stake, and so much more. The decision comes at a life-or-death moment for the Massachusetts casino industry, two months before state voters decide whether or not to repeal the 2011 casino law and ban the industry from the state. The deliberations are to be held in open session and streamed live on the Web. They are the commission’s Super Bowl, the event that will draw more eyes than any other and have the potential to build public confidence in Massachusetts’s emerging casino market, or erode it. “We need to show that this has been a transparent, thoughtful process,” said the commission’s acting chairman for these deliberations, James McHugh. “We want to get this right.” For months, the two applicants have gone after each other like opponents in a political campaign, with attack ads, biting public criticism, and the relentless whispers of operatives dishing dirt. But the tactics that work in traditional elections may not make a difference. The commission is an electorate with four highly educated voters, leading teams of consultants that have spent months taking the two proposals apart and comparing the pieces, in many cases using proprietary company information not available to the public. The commissioners themselves are data-driven personalities, not the types to base their decision on emotions or on which proposal won the most daily news cycles. The projects will be scored across five categories — finance, building and site design, economic development, mitigation and a catch-all overview category. The review covers hundreds of points of comparison, many involving hard numbers that will lay bare the differences between the proposals. The scores become public Monday and Tuesday. A decision may come by the end of the week. The commissioners — McHugh, Gayle Cameron, Enrique Zuniga, and Bruce Stebbins — are not required to pick the project that wins the most categories, but they have great faith in their process and if one project were to win all five, it is hard to see how it would lose. Commission chairman Stephen Crosby will not participate in the decision because he had a business relationship with a landowner with a stake in the Everett property where Wynn wants to build. The chairman was also criticized for attending a Kentucky Derby party in May at Suffolk Downs. Wynn Everett The latest rendering of the proposed Wynn Resorts casino in Everett.Things not likely to have significant weight in this week’s deliberations include recent sexual harassment complaints against Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria, as well as Suffolk Downs’s maneuvering to bring a casino to its property in Revere, in an end run around the will of East Boston voters who rejected a casino on the Eastie side of the racetrack.
A commission debate focused on the merits of the two applications will offer plenty of contrasts, beginning with the market the applicants aim to attract.
Mohegan Sun has proposed two hotels at the casino, offering a “variety of price points, from moderate to ultraluxury,” the company said. The casino expects 75 to 80 percent of gambling revenue to come from slots, and 20 to 25 percent from table games, in line with regional averages. Mohegan Sun Massachusetts would offer 4,230 slot machines, nearly 1,000 more than Wynn, as well as 100 table games and 20 poker tables.
Wynn would cater to an affluent demographic, beginning by building a five-star hotel. Wynn Resorts projects 40 percent of its gambling revenues in Everett would come from table games, preferred by international customers and high-stakes whales — wealthy people who enjoy making big bets.
Wynn projects 60 percent of gambling revenue from slots, the game of choice for lower-stakes players. The casino would offer 3,240 slot machines and 143 table games, plus 25 poker tables — nearly 50 more tables than the Revere plan.
Both strategies can be lucrative.
Mohegan Sun claims to better know the local market; Wynn claims its approach would attract out-of-state gamblers who wouldn’t come otherwise, thereby bringing new money into the regional economy.
The commission will have to decide which strategy is more likely to maximize tax revenue.
The commission’s finance team, led by Zuniga, former director of the Massachusetts Water Pollution Abatement Trust, has estimated the market will produce $705 million to $822 million in gambling revenue, also known as the amount customers lose. The state’s cut of that revenue will be 25 percent.
Wynn Resorts brings a strong balance sheet to the competition, and is likely to emerge as the stronger financial contender. It also proposes a bigger investment in the physical plant.
Mohegan Sun has long touted its project as a $1.3 billion development, but a Globe analysis of a preliminary budget the company filed with the state indicates it may invest less than $600 million in bricks and mortar.
That budget includes a $316 million line item for “cost of land,” which Mohegan Sun said was “an accounting calculation” related to the cost of leased property over time. The company has a deal to lease 40 acres from Suffolk Downs for the casino.
Mohegan Sun’s budget also includes: $43 million in pre-
operations rent payments; $50 million in development expenses already spent by Suffolk in pursuit of a casino; $149 million in projected loan interest and $21 million in financing fees; and $28 million in payments to Caesars Entertainment, the casino partner from the defunct Suffolk Downs East Boston plan.
Those and other costs unrelated to construction leave about $560 million to build the casino, the hotels, and a retail and dining center, according to the document.
The company says it has a more detailed budget with a construction figure of about $700 million, though it would not provide the document.
Wynn Resorts, in statements filed with the commission, said the company’s $1.6 billion proposal includes about $1 billion in “hard construction” costs. The company provided a little more detail in response to questions from the Globe. Wynn would spend $60 million on land, including its primary 30-acre parcel in Everett and other pieces it wants to acquire.
Financing expenses would be about $99 million, the company said, and “all other costs” outside of construction would be $302 million. The price to clean the polluted Everett site, estimated to be $30 million, is accounted for in land and construction costs, the company said.
Mohegan Sun’s application also may raise concerns over awarding the state’s most lucrative license to an operator that runs a competing casino less than a two-hour drive away, where there is no tax on table game revenue.
The company insists its agreement with financing partner Brigade Capital Management, the investor that would become the majority owner of the casino, would make it impossible for the Connecticut property to effectively compete for customers in Greater Boston.
For Wynn, traffic may be a major challenge.
In addition to maximizing the benefits of a casino, the commission’s core mission includes minimizing the downsides. One big potential downside: the effect a Wynn casino could have on Sullivan Square in Charlestown.
Wynn has forecast that roughly 60 percent of the resort’s incoming traffic would pass through the area, which is already frequently jammed.
The company has proposed about $6 million in fixes for Sullivan Square, including new and better traffic signals, street widening, and reconstructed roads and sidewalks. State transportation officials have expressed concern about whether the fixes are consistent with the City of Boston’s long-term plans to remake Sullivan Square.
Complicating the problem, Wynn and Boston Mayor Martin Walsh were unable to negotiate a compensation deal for Boston, as called for in the state casino law, which could have settled the developer’s responsibilities to Sullivan Square.
The commission’s experts have studied the traffic problem, and could offer a possible solution during the evaluation this week, which the commission could make mandatory as a condition of the casino license.
Wynn’s building design, which includes a tall hotel tower, has also come under criticism, potentially to be reflected in the evaluations. The design was panned by the state chapter of the American Institute of Architects, which embraced the Mohegan Sun design as more in harmony with its surroundings, such as nearby Revere Beach.
The flap over the design feeds into a larger sense that Wynn, who adroitly mastered Chinese politics and customs when building in Macau, did not invest the same effort understanding the peculiarities of Massachusetts.
The Wynn team — starting at the top with Chairman Steve Wynn — is generally thought of locally as the more hard-nosed and headstrong of the two applicants. Mohegan Sun executives, on the other hand, promised generous compensation payments to Boston, and have gone out of their way to demonstrate in public how eager they are to be agreeable corporate citizens who bend to the commission’s will.
The commission and the holder of the Greater Boston license will be stuck with each other for a long time, if the casino law survives repeal. The sense that Mohegan Sun would be easier to regulate may be a competitive advantage.
Long-term thinking could work in Wynn’s favor, too, if the commission concludes that the company’s financial strength makes it the safer choice to withstand the next, inevitable, economic downturn.
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