Wynn Wins License To Build Boston Area CasinoVegas Casino Mogul To Spend $1.6 Billion On Everett Facility |
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The company of billionaire Las Vegas casino developer Steve Wynn on Tuesday won the sole license to build a casino in the Boston area, one of three casino licenses that a 2011 law authorized. The Boston selection process had been going on since last year.
Wynn said he will build a $1.6 billion casino on the Mystic River in Everett. His company beat out Mohegan Sun by a margin of 3-1 in the state Gaming Commission vote.
“This has been a really, really difficult decision,” James McHugh, one of the four commissioners, told reporters following the vote, according to Reuters.
“The two were very close together. The Wynn applicant had the edge in the economic benefits that it would provide to the community and the region.”
Wynn’s project could open sometime in 2017 or 2018.
The casino-hotel will have 100,000 square feet of gaming floor space and 550 hotel rooms.
Last week, Wynn got off to a weak start in the final round of the selection process, as one state gaming regulator said that his Everett plan “does not have the innovative energy characteristic of [Wynn’s] Las Vegas hotels and of the best new construction in the Boston area.”
Wynn is looking to clean up a former Monsanto Chemical site. He plans to use 250,000 live oysters to help clean up the river. Wynn would be working with the nonprofit Massachusetts Oyster Project.
Massachusetts voters will actually get to decide in November if the state should repeal the casino law. Most agree that the repeal is a long-shot, but some heavyweights, including U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D), support the repeal effort and so it probably has a fighter’s chance.
MGM Resorts International, which received approval for a casino in Springfield, and Penn National Gaming, which was OK’ed for a slots-only parlor, are the other two firms that have been given the go-ahead by state regulators.
The third casino license hasn’t been awarded yet.
The casinos are set to be built in different regions of the state.
Thanks to the expanded gambling in Massachusetts, poker players in the Boston area will no longer have to drive to Connecticut to find solid poker games.
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