Massachusetts Licenses

TAKEAWAY: MASSACHUSETTS LICENSES

The legislature approved a gaming bill just before Thanksgiving after many, many years of consideration. And they did so, I must say, in a very thoughtful fashion. There will be three regions. There will be competitions among people like ourselves, that is, the Suffolk Downs group of which we are a partner, who will compete for the right to have a license in each of these three areas.

Now, Mr. Mayor, you’ll be pleased to know that we’re very fond of Boston as a site for this casino. If there’s going to be a casino in the eastern part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, we think Boston’s a pretty good place. Twenty million tourists come to Boston each year, it has a tremendous international audience, it has an outstanding culinary history, it has all of the things we offer in other great cities around the world, like London, with the Olympic games, forthcoming in Johannesburg, where we hosted our best customers for the World Cup a year or two ago, where we believe we can build a very successful business that all of you will be proud of. Some of you will visit us, some of you won’t. But it will come to be a very widely respected and very welcomed part of the Boston community over time.