Members of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe were scheduled to gather on the tribe’s reservation in Taunton Tuesday for a groundbreaking for a massive $1 billion casino and hotel complex.

The ceremony comes three week after the tribe announced its ambitious plans to open the casino — or at least part of it — by the summer of 2017. That would make the tribe’s First Light casino the first full-scale gambling operation to open under the 2011 state gambling expansion law.

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The tribe’s rapid acceleration of its plans may be intended to influence the state Gaming Commission, which must decide whether the Mashpee tribe will have the exclusive right to run a resort casino in Southeastern Massachusetts, or whether a competing plan in Brockton, just 20 miles away, can also move forward.The Mashpee have urged the gambling commission to vote down the casino license application from Mass Gaming & Entertainment, the group with plans for a $677 million casino on the site of the Brockton Fairgrounds. If the gambling commission denies the license for a Brockton casino it would let stand an earlier agreement between the Mashpee and the state under which the state granted the tribe exclusivity in that region in exchange for 17 percent of the casino’s revenue. As a Native American tribe, the Mashpee has the right to open a casino without the state’s blessing, but not the right to a monopoly in Southeastern Massachusetts. Mass Gaming & Entertainment has countered that the gambling commission should approve a license for its proposal because of the high likelihood of it being quickly built, while the Mashpee proposal is already under threat of a lawsuit filed by Taunton property owners who are challenging the propriety of the federal government’s designation of tribe’s land as a reservation.Mass Gaming & Entertainment’s lawyers says litigation could drag on for a decade or more. But the Mashpee’s lawyers say the tribe intends to build even while the lawsuit is pending, and that they are confident the tribe will ultimately prevail in court. Advertisement If the state were to grant the license for a Brockton casino, it would mean that two full casinos could open just 20 miles apart in a market already at risk of saturation. It would also mean that the tribe would be relieved of the obligation to share any of its revenue with the state, giving the tribe additional millions of dollars to spend on marketingThe Mashpee have the financial backing of the Genting Group, one of the world’s largest casino operators and one of the early financiers of Foxwoods Resorts and Mohegan Sun. The owners and operators of more than 50 casinos worldwide, including some of the world’s largest, Genting hosts more than 60 million casino customers a year and employs more than 50,000 people.Under the tribe’s plan, the casino would open with thousands of slot machines and table games in June 2017, while work on the rest of the project, including three hotels, would continue to 2020.The casino’s path has been far from smooth. In 2013, the Mashpee reached the deal with the state for exclusive rights. But the Gaming Commission, impatient with delays of the tribe’s efforts to win federal approval of reservation land, eventually opened the process to competitors.Last fall, the Mashpee tribe received approval to treat the 150-acre Taunton site as federal land. But by that point, Mass Gaming & Entertainment had unveiled plans for a casino and hotel. The gambling commission has already approved licenses for resort casinos in Everett and Springfield. Plainridge Park Casino, a small-scale casino that offers slot machines but no tables games, opened in Plainville last year.The Mashpee have agreed to make about $14 million in annual payments to Taunton. The casino would provide up to 1,000 construction jobs and 2,600 permanent jobs.Sean P. Murphy can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Follow him on Twitter @spmurphyboston.