At its new casino in Springfield, MGM plans to tap into the discretionary income of Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York residents to lift a city that the gambling giant’s CEO described Thursday morning as “down on its luck.”
“This is a very affluent area,” MGM Resorts International Chairman and CEO Jim Murren told CNBC’s Contessa Brewer and Squawk Box host Joe Kernen during a TV interview on the eve of the casino’s opening. “We’re in western Massachusetts. It will capture a regional market of New York, northwestern Connecticut, Massachusetts. It’s a city that was down on its luck for many years. We’ve developed something here, a real urban renewal project. We’ve put 3,000 men and women to work. I think we’re going to get a good return but I’m really gratified by the fact that we’re here helping this city pull itself up.”
The first resort casino in Massachusetts is set to open on Friday amid a prolonged economic recovery that began after the Great Recession of 2009.
“We do okay in tougher markets but we definitely benefit if the consumer is healthier because this is a discretionary purchase so yeah, we’re pleased with the macros,” said Murren.
While 40 percent of Massachusetts residents in 2014 supported a ballot question prohibiting casinos, public opinion about the casino in the Springfield area is “great,” Murren said, while adding that “it was very poor early on and it’s improved.”
“People are literally crying for joy that they have these jobs,” he said.
Murren brushed off the competition from Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun in Connecticut and the emerging Wynn Resorts-backed Encore Boston Harbor casino in Everett.
“We’re used to competitive markets and we have a track record,” he said. “It’s kind of almost unfair for people to compete against us because we’re the biggest entertainment company. We’re the market leader everywhere we go.”
Noting MGM had purchased the Yonkers Raceway/Empire City Casino in Yonkers, N.Y., Brewer asked Murren if the company was overextended on the East Coast.
“We just don’t feel that way. The ability to cross market between these properties is very high,” he said, noting company data points the likelihood of attracting customers that are not currently wagering at MGM facilities.