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Casino Business Heats Up Among New England Tribes

"If the chips fall right for the region's native tribes, as many as six Native American-owned casinos could one day be operating within 40 miles of West Warwick, a gritty former textile town where the Narragansett Tribe aims to build a $500 million gambling emporium.

"Gaming experts say such proliferation would be good for consumers, who benefit in a competitive marketplace, but bad for the tribes.

"…The region's two existing casinos, Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun Resort, both in Connecticut, are among America's largest gambling operations. Each has been a gold mine for the tribes who own them, Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan.

"In recent weeks, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head-Aquinnah on Martha's Vineyard announced renewed efforts to build a casino in southeastern Massachusetts with help from Louisiana's Tunica-Buloxi Tribal Nation.

"The Nipmuc Nation won preliminary federal recognition in January and is said to be eyeing land on the Connecticut-Massachusetts state line for a gambling complex.

"To the south, the Eastern Pequot and Paucatuck Eastern Pequot bands of North Stonington, Connecticut, have earned preliminary tribal status and have plans for a casino.

"…In the interest of Native American solidarity, the tribes publicly support each other's efforts to bring more Indian gaming to New England. Nipmuc spokesman Charlie Manning said the tribe is fully supportive of the Wampanoags and disavowed any notion of competition between the two groups.

"…But economics dictate that the first to get a casino up and running has the best chance of seeing Foxwoods-type profits, [says Bill Eadington, director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada, Reno.]…"

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