Rhode Island Voters Could Approve Casino 400 Feet From Massachusetts Border
TIVERTON, R.I. (CBS/AP) – When Rhode Island residents go to the polls on Tuesday, they'll be voting on a ballot question that could have big implications in Massachusetts.
Question 1 on the statewide ballot asks voters to allow a new casino in Tiverton. The Tiverton casino and an adjacent hotel would sit off a highway 400 feet from the border with Fall River, Massachusetts, with aims to draw in convenience gamblers from throughout the region.
The proposed casino off Route 24 would feature about 1,000 slot machines, 32 table games, a sit-down restaurant and two or three takeout restaurants. The three-story hotel would have 84 guest rooms.
The potential casino is projected to bring about $50 million in tax revenue for Rhode Island, and it could be more if competing plans for a flashier destination casino by the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe don't pan out in Taunton, Massachusetts.
Even if voters statewide approve Question 1, it still has to get the support of voters in Tiverton.
Town leaders point to the $3 million a year guaranteed to town coffers and an architectural footprint so modest it's designed to look like the town's library. Opponents are worried about social ills, the casino's long-term viability amid changing tastes and the heritage of an area fought over during a bloody 17th-century war between English colonists and local tribes.
Casinos are also on the ballot in Massachusetts on Tuesday. Bay State voters are being asked to approve a license for another slot parlor with no more than 1,250 slot machines.
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