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The operators of Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun are within days of choosing a location for a third casino in Connecticut, but at a meeting Thursday legislators were urged to take the search in another direction.

"The question of opening up and having a competitive process is something to consider seriously," said state Rep. Joe Verrengia, D-West Hartford, and co-chairman of the legislature's public safety and security committee. "This has to be part of our due diligence."

Verrengia's comments came after a 4-hour forum organized by the public safety committee, which oversees gaming. The forum was aimed at gathering options for expanding casino gaming in Connecticut from six key players in the debate.

The committee will be a crucial hurdle for any legislation that would clear the way for an expansion of casino gambling off tribal lands in Connecticut.

Spectators — some of them workers bused in from the casinos — packed into the forum, with an overflow crowd moved into another room to watch on television.

The Mashantucket Pequots and Mohegans were given the exclusive right by state lawmakers in 2015 to search for a casino site in the Hartford area that would compete with a $950 million casino and entertainment complex now under construction in Springfield. The casino is a strategy to preserve jobs and state revenue tied to the gambling industry in Connecticut.

But the tribes, which formed the MMCT joint venture for the Hartford project, must now win final legislation to move ahead.

MGM Resorts International, the developer of the Springfield casino, told legislators that it has more choices than just sticking with MMCT.

"The choice was either do something that we want you do to do or do nothing," Uri Clinton, senior vice president and legal counsel for MGM Resorts. "I actually say the choice is different."

Clinton urged legislators to invite proposals from more operators that could be evaluated side-by-side with the one from MMCT.

Bringing in other potential operators carries risks, an issue raised throughout Thursday's forum. Allowing other operators into Connecticut could jeopardize the state's share of slot revenue that comes from Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, about $200 million a year.

The state's two-decades-old agreements with the tribes says that if another casino were permitted off tribal lands, the Mashnantucket Pequots and Mohegans would now longer be obligated to make slot payments to the state.

But there are also concerns about the Mashantucket Pequots and Mohegan expanding off their reservations and how that would affect the same agreements. A preliminary ruling from the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs last year said it shouldn't, but the ruling wasn't binding.

On Thursday, Clinton said a more expansive casino in southwestern Connecticut would more than offset the loss of the slot payments.

Two other players invited to the forum — the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation and the Golden Hill Paugussetts, two Native American tribes in Connecticut — also supported western or southwestern Connecticut as a location. Both tribes have expressed interest in launching casinos, but have lacked federal recognition.

Richard Velky, chief of the Schaghticokes, said the state move to establish casino gambling off reservations has opened up new possibilities. But the Schaghticokes have been shut out of the process, Velky said.

The Schaghticokes offered an economic study Thursday that also pointed to the southwestern corner of Connecticut as the most viable option, similar conclusions reached by an earlier study by MGM.

Public safety committee members also were concerned about more legal challenges. MGM already has a pending lawsuit against the state over the legislation that allowed MMCT to search. Another one is expected should the legislature expand casino gambling and back MMCT's choice of either East Windsor or Windsor Locks, a decision MMCT said is coming "within days."

Sportech, the operator of an off-track betting parlor near Bradley International Airport, expressed concern about the effects of a casino on its business. And Silver Lane Partners' Anthony W. Ravosa continued to maintain his East Hartford casino proposal — now eliminated from contention by the tribes — remains the most viable option for benefiting the larger greater Hartford area.

For its part, MMCT stressed its deep roots in Connecticut and the need to act now rather than wait for competition to further intensify in the region.

"We're here to tell the legislature we have a model, we're going to make a selection, we're going to build a casino, it's going to save thousands of jobs and tens of millions of dollars in gaming tax revenue," Kevin Brown, chairman of the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, said. "The decision is now up to the state legislature to allow us to implement that solution."

Brown and Felix Rappaport, Foxwoods' chief executive, were questioned pointedly by legislators for more than an hour, especially on how they didn't seem to have a problem competing for a gaming license in Massachusetts.

"We were doing it in a way to preserve our business here," Brown said. "Why would we go to Massachusetts and build a casino that would cause our casino in Connecticut to fail?"

Brown said he was confident MMCT will win backing of the legislature, even though the political landscape of the both the Senate and the House has shifted.

Sen. Timothy D. Larson, D-East Hartford and co-chair of the public safety committee, said after the forum he still strongly supports the MMCT vision.

"In my view, we have a longstanding history with the two [tribes], and I think they are making an historic and very bold step to benefit the state of Connecticut," Larson said.