Casino interests raise ante in Massachusetts

It’s 1 a.m. on a Wednesday and the waitresses in short black skirts and sleeveless red shirts stride through the crowd, shouting over the constant din of coins dropping and chips clashing.

“Drinks! Beverages!”

NBA star Rasheed Wallace saunters past a $2,500 Baccarat table and takes a seat in the corner of the Grand Celebrity Room, just as 62-year-old Betty McNeil begins her third hour of staring at the “Cleopatra” electronic slot machine in another part of the sprawling casino, hoping the hieroglyphic symbols spin just right.

“It’s like hypnotism. When you play you’re in another world,” said McNeil, who drove 20 miles with her sister to spend several hours at the MGM Grand in downtown Detroit. “There’s something about the casino. You forget everything when you come here.”

Over the past eight years, Detroit has brought three casinos into the heart of the city, revitalizing portions of its downtown and becoming the most populous American city with a casino inside its borders.

The casinos, catering to high rollers and working folks, have added nearly 7,000 jobs, which average $54,532 in annual wages, tips, and benefits, according to figures compiled by the American Gaming Association, a Washington-based gaming advocacy organization.

Last year they brought in $1.3 billion in revenue, of which 12.1 percent, or $158 million, went to the state of Michigan and 11.9 percent, or $155 million, to the city of Detroit.

The city has built more hotels in the past five years than in the previous 25 years, according to city officials.

“People thought Sodom and Gomorrah,” said Matt Allen, spokesman for Detroit’s mayor, Kwame M. Kilpatrick. “But none of that has happened. There’s a synergy here. You can feel it, and you can see it. We don’t really see any downside.”

The casinos have not brought the crime that critics warned about, but gambling specialists contend that big-city casinos aren’t the windfall that proponents claim. They bring in less money than rural destination casinos, target people least able to afford to gamble, and take business away from local restaurants, the specialists say.

It could all be part of what’s to come for Boston, where Mayor Thomas M. Menino is vociferously arguing for a resort-style casino — with hotels, shops, and Vegas-style shows — to be built at Suffolk Downs, which covers about 170 acres in East Boston and Revere.

“The location is perfect; it’s six minutes away from the Sumner Tunnel, and it’s accessible by many roadways,” Menino said in a recent interview. ”I see a glorious location in Boston, with a lot of benefits to our community. I think it’s a great opportunity.

“When you think about how many people go down to Connecticut every day to bet — that money should be staying in Massachusetts.”

In the next few weeks, the Boston City Council is to start holding hearings on the idea.

At the same time, the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe has a deal with the town of Middleboro for a $1 billion resort casino and is seeking state and federal approval. The operators of the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut said last week that they want to open a casino in Palmer. And developer Sheldon Adelson visited Beacon Hill last week to push a proposal for one near Marlboro.

State Treasurer Timothy Cahill said the state should negotiate with commercial developers to open several destination casinos. By Labor Day, Gov. Deval L. Patrick is expected to disclose his position on expanding gambling in Massachusetts.

A poll conducted last year by the Center for Policy Analysis at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth indicated that 56.5 percent of the 1,041 Massachusetts residents surveyed supported resort casinos in Massachusetts. When asked to rate a location for a casino, residents ranked, in order, Western Massachusetts, Boston, and the New Bedford/Fall River area.

About 15 years ago, Michigan was in a similar position. Casino gambling was illegal, and it faced multiple legislative hurdles. The governor and many legislators opposed it. But a group of pro-casino activists gathered enough signatures to force a ballot question in 1996. It narrowly passed, in part because a casino had just opened across the border in Windsor, Ontario, and was drawing Michigan residents by the busload.

“People here all of the sudden thought, ‘Maybe we ought to have our own one of those over here,’ ” said a Detroit official.