MGM, Connecticut tribes square off for Bridgeport ‘discussion’

Casino operator MGM Resorts’ long-running war with Connecticut’s tribal gaming operators has shifted its focus to the town of Bridgeport.

On Wednesday, the chairmen of the Mohegan Tribe and Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation made public a letter they’d written to Connecticut officials expressing their interest in a joint venture casino project in Bridgeport, a coastal city close to the state’s southern border with New York state.

Bridgeport is where MGM has proposed building a $675m gaming and entertainment complex. While the state has so far shown little issue in advancing this proposal, the tribes now say that “if circumstances have changed and there is now real interest in putting a casino in Bridgeport, we want to be a part of that discussion.”

The two tribes, who individually operate the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos, have teamed up on a joint venture called MMCT to build a third casino on non-tribal land in East Windsor, just south of the Massachusetts border. This casino is intended to siphon off gamblers who might otherwise continue heading north to MGM Springfield, the $960m Massachusetts casino scheduled to open next September.