Casino

The Mashpee Wampanoag tribe would make approximately $33 million in upfront payments to Taunton as part of a deal reached with the city's mayor to allow the tribe to build a resort casino in the southeastern Massachusetts community. The agreement announced Thursday by tribal chairman Cedric Cromwell and Mayor Thomas Hoye also calls for minimum annual payments of about $13 million to the city. The tribe has proposed a $500 million casino on 146 acres of land at the junction of Routes 24 and 140. The complex, to be built in stages over a five-year period, also would include three...

Scott Butera is nothing but blunt when it comes to explaining what casino operators want from their customers — "their wallet and their spend. " The chief executive of Foxwoods Resort Casino is also candid about customers he can do without — for example, those stereotypical busloads of senior citizens who show up with walkers and oxygen tanks. "We've dropped a lot of that … not for humane reasons," Butera jokes. It's because those darn elders don't gamble away enough of their money to help Foxwoods reach its goal, which at this point is basic survival.

The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe will pay the city of Taunton approximately $33 million in upfront costs and make minimum annual payments of roughly $13 million if it wins approval to build a $500 million resort casino there, the tribe announced Thursday. In a statement announcing the agreement with the Southeastern Massachusetts city, the tribe said the proposed casino in the Liberty and Union Industrial Park at the intersection of Routes 24 and 140 will provide 1,000 construction jobs and 2,500 permanent jobs in its first phase.

LAKEVILLE - The Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah unveiled its plans Tuesday for a $167 million tribal casino in Southeastern Massachusetts that would include a hotel, retail space, and a buffer zone isolating it from residential areas of Lakeville and Freetown. Tribal representatives and their developers appeared before more than 500 people at a packed high school auditorium Tuesday night, spending more than an hour showing the audience photos of casinos from around the country, but offering few details about plans to build along Route 140 in Lakeville and Freetown.

Taunton residents will vote in early June on development plans for a Mashpee Wampanoag tribal casino that could forever change their city. But what many residents do not realize is that even if a majority were to vote against the casino, it could still be built. In Taunton, where the Mashpee are proposing a tribal casino on what would be sovereign Indian land, the June 9 referendum is a nonbinding measure of public opinion. That is in contrast to communities such as East Boston, Palmer, and Springfield, where commercial casinos have been proposed but cannot go forward without approval by voters.

(Jeremy C. Fox for Boston.com) A scene from Suffolk Downs. By Giordana Mecagni Recently, I joined the group No Eastie Casino, and I feel I needed to explain why I feel so compelled to take up this issue in such a public way. I'm not a native East Bostonian, but I have lived in Massachusetts for most of my life. My husband and I bought a home in Eagle Hill in East Boston almost seven years ago after living in various apartments in Brighton and Somerville for 10 years.

A new casino in Maine is looking for a few good blackjack dealers. The Oxford Casino is holding a job fair Saturday seeking applicants to fill more than 50 open positions as dealers for table games such as blackjack and poker. The fair will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 1591 Main St. in Oxford. The casino is currently under construction and is slated to open in late spring or early summer. Casino officials say table game dealers are being hired early so they can begin training ahead of the casino's opening.

Casino developer Steve Wynn abandoned plans Tuesday to build a Foxborough gambling resort on land owned by Robert Kraft, a decision that reshuffles the competition for the sole Greater Boston casino license by eliminating a top-tier competitor. Wynn's retreat - which leaves Suffolk Downs the leading contender in the Greater Boston region - was announced a day after anticasino candidates swept the Foxborough selectmen race. That vote marked the first ballot-box defeat for a would-be casino developer in Massachusetts.

LAKEVILLE - The Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah unveiled its plans Tuesday for a $167 million tribal casino in Southeastern Massachusetts that would include a hotel, retail space, and a buffer zone isolating it from residential areas of Lakeville and Freetown. Tribal representatives and their developers appeared before more than 500 people at a packed high school auditorium Tuesday night, spending more than an hour showing the audience photos of casinos from around the country, but offering few details about plans to build along Route 140 in Lakeville and Freetown.

LAS VEGAS - Steve Wynn is adamant: It is not the money that attracts him to Foxborough, where the casino magnate wants to build a gambling resort. At 70, the restless billionaire could hardly spend what he already has. "I can't explain it," said Wynn, an obsessive designer of elaborate buildings and landscapes, ranked by Forbes as the world's 491st richest person. "I never thought of it in terms of the money. It's something I can do and when I'm doing it, I'm in love with it. " In addition to design, Wynn loves to compete - and he's used to winning.

The state gambling commission may be ready to solicit development proposals from casino companies by the second quarter of 2013, as the panel pursues a two-step process to vet potential bidders before asking them for detailed proposals. Stephen Crosby, chairman of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, cautioned that current time estimates could change. But under the timetable the commission discussed with its consultants Tuesday, the commission would spend the next several months developing regulations, with the goal of being ready by the end of the summer to invite casino companies...

It's been a long, strange trip for what appears to be several tiny chips of lunar rock that found their way into a casino mogul's hands after being collected by the first men on the moon. If they're real, they were plucked from the lunar surface by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, given by then-President Richard Nixon to former Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Garcia, pilfered by a Costa Rican mercenary soldier-turned Contra rebel, traded to a Baptist missionary for unknown items, then sold to a flamboyant Las Vegas casino mogul who squirreled them away in in a safety deposit box. ...

The worldwide casino company run by billionaire Boston native Sheldon Adelson will bypass the chance to build a casino in Massachusetts, saying the state's plan to license up to three casinos and a slot parlor is going to dilute the market, according to a spokesman. Adelson, who had spent nearly $500,000 lobbying lawmakers on the casino bill approved last November, is known for building lavish gambling resorts, some costing several billion dollars. "With multiple facilities being proposed, it didn't synch with our business model," Ron Reese,...

Casino regulators are investigating whether the 19-year-old daughter of late pop singer Whitney Houston gambled at a Las Vegas Strip resort. State Gaming Control Board Chairman Mark Lipparelli told the Las Vegas Review-Journal ( http://bit.ly/KhSuZN) that investigators are checking if Bobbi Kristina Brown played slot machines at the MGM Grand, and whether casino employees knew if she did. The legal gambling age in Nevada is 21. Underage gambling is a misdemeanor, and resort owner MGM Resorts International could face fines.

The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe will pay the city of Taunton approximately $33 million in upfront costs and make minimum annual payments of roughly $13 million if it wins approval to build a $500 million resort casino there, the tribe announced Thursday. In a statement announcing the agreement with the Southeastern Massachusetts city, the tribe said the proposed casino in the Liberty and Union Industrial Park at the intersection of Routes 24 and 140 will provide 1,000 construction jobs and 2,500 permanent jobs in its first phase.

Two weeks before Robert Kraft abandoned a plan to build a casino in Foxborough, the Kraft Group paid $1.18 million for a parcel of land adjacent to the Route 1 site where the casino would have been built. The Kraft Group's purchase of the 4.9-acre plot of land, located just across the town line in Walpole, caught local officials by surprise when it was disclosed this week. They speculated that the additional land would make the Kraft Group's holdings around Gillette Stadium more attractive for development.

WASHINGTON - Veterans Affairs employees last year racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in government credit-card bills at casino and luxury hotels, movie theaters, and high-end retailers such as Sharper Image and Franklin Covey, and government auditors are investigating. Through a Freedom of Information Act request, the Associated Press obtained the agency's list of 3.1 million purchases made in the 2007 budget year. The list provides a detailed look into staff spending at the government's second-largest agency.

A March 20 meeting to discuss a suggestion to form a negotiating team for a potential casino project still has not yet been rescheduled, after being postponed for lack of a place to hold it. Selectmen chairman Larry Harrington had called the meeting independently after a letter from a resident suggested the town should be prepared, no matter what comes down the road. Developer Steve Wynn wants to build a $1 billion casino/hotel resort across from Gillette Stadium on land leased from New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.

Jimmy Buffett told gambling regulators Thursday that next week's opening of his new Margaritaville Casino and Resort will be exciting, but creating jobs along his native Mississippi Gulf Coast has been a rewarding experience in itself. Buffet was in Jackson on Thursday when the Mississippi Gaming Commission deemed him "suitable" for involvement in the casino, set to open Tuesday in Biloxi. Gaming Commission Chairman Jerry St. Pe told Buffett he'd already been approved, but showing up in person was required as part of the certification process.