Malloy seeking protection for the two casinos

Malloy to Capitol reporters this morning, talking about the Mohegan Sun and Foxwoodst: “We’ve been working with them for weeks, months actually. First of all we have to recognize that they’re an important part of our economy. They bring people to our state. We want them to continue to bring people to our state. They pay us a fair amount of revenue. We have to make sure they’re in a position to compete with other states for customers…They have some basic strengths right now…They have a great strength. They are already build…I think as you look at gaming spreading aacross Maine and Rhode Island and Massachusetts and New York, the likelihood that anyone’s going to amass the amount of capital necessary to replicate either one of those facilities in the short short is not very likely at all. So what wew’ve got to do is recognize they have a particular strength and then maximize that strenght and not allow unfair competition to exist in other states, which means we have to review all of our policies with respect to how we monitor, how we participate, how we partner and how we advertise these organizations. So I recognize that we have strength and that we’re dealing from a place of strength. On the other hand I also understand that there is going to be siphoning off of some amount of revenue. How do we allow our casinos to compete for that revenue…We have OTB in the state of Connecticut. So we have sports wagering already and whether that would be one of the items that would be expanded, it could certainly be on the table….I think the Lottery wants to look at Keno. We’ve looked at Keno. Other states have Keno. Other states that are getting into the gaming business have Keno, so it is certainly one of the things that has to be on the table….”