Voters said no dice Tuesday to repealing the state’s three-year-old expanded gambling law, betting instead on the casino industry’s potential to change the luck of two struggling cities, and put thousands of people to work.
Associated Press called the race at about 10:15 p.m. The electorate’s emphatic embrace of the gambling industry clears the way for Massachusetts’ first slot machines to begin spinning as soon as next summer.
Defenders of the casino law, backed by millions of dollars in contributions from casino companies, ran a tightly focused campaign this fall against Question 3, the ballot measure that proposed to repeal the state’s 2011 casino law. The campaign included thousands of TV ads highlighting the jobs the casino industry promises to create in Massachusetts.Casino opponents, in turn, offered a Vegas buffet of reasons to vote for repeal, saying the gambling industry would take customers from small businesses, and increase gambling addiction, traffic and crime. Continue reading it below Related Article Results of the Mass. ballot questions Full results from the four ballot questions facing Massachusetts voters.But opponents lacked a rich corporate patron that could substantially fund the campaign, and did not raise enough money from small donors to finance a competitive media effort.
“They had no major players asking other major players for money, making the case for how there was a possibility to win,” said Springfield political consultant Anthony Cignoli, who closely followed the repeal campaign.
With few resources, the repeal campaign concentrated on building a volunteer army to run phone banks and hit the streets for door-to-door canvassing. Their strategy was to knit together local opposition groups that fought casinos in municipal referendums in 2013, and scored several victories despite being massively outspent in each case.
The 2011 Massachusetts casino law authorized up to three resort casinos, no more than one in each of three regions of the state, and one slot parlor.
Penn National Gaming is midway through construction of the slot parlor in Plainville, after choosing to break ground last spring despite the threat of repeal. The Plainridge Park facility is due to open around June — if the casino law survives.
If the threat to the casino law is busted, the state gambling commission will formally grant licenses to MGM Resorts for a casino proposal in Springfield, the commission’s choice to build a Western Massachusetts resort; and to Wynn Resorts for a casino plan in Everett.
MGM plans to spend $800 million to remake a section of downtown Springfield damaged by a tornado three years ago. Wynn plans to spend $1.6 billion to clean and redevelop a polluted piece of industrial land on the Mystic River waterfront in Everett with a hotel and casino.
The repeal effort faced enormous hurdles to even get on the ballot, after Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office ruled last year that the measure was unconstitutional. Casino opponents appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court, while continuing to collect signatures to qualify for the ballot. The SJC ruled that the vote could be held.
In addition to lacking money, the repeal effort did not have a well-known face working full-time to overturn the casino law.
John Ribeiro, head of the Repeal the Casino deal campaign, was a relentless champion for repeal, but he is a private citizen. Scott Harshbarger, a former attorney general who advised the repeal campaign, is well-known, but was not the full-time frontman for the effort.
What remains to be seen tonight is whether the statewide vote dilutes the “not-in-my-backyard” passions that had fueled the campaigns to defeat casinos proposals in East Boston, West Springfield, Palmer and Milford, and stonewalled a number of other proposals before they even made it to a vote.
Mark Arsenault can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Follow him on Twitter @bostonglobemark| < Prev | Next > |
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