Hartford — Connecticut may well have a third casino someday.

But where? And when? And who might build it?

More than two years into the debate over such questions, the legislature’s Public Safety and Security Committee still was seeking clarity Thursday, conducting a four-hour meeting dominated by input from Connecticut's two casino-owning tribes — the Mashantucket Pequots and Mohegans — and an attorney for MGM Resorts International, the Las Vegas-based outfit that’s building a $950 million resort casino in Springfield, Mass.

As Felix Rappaport, Foxwoods Resort Casino’s top executive, told committee members, MGM Springfield poses a “massive threat” to the two casinos in southeastern Connecticut: Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun.

If the state — in partnership with the tribes — doesn’t do something about it, Rappaport said, jobs and revenue will head north in alarming numbers.

The tribes know this, said Kevin Brown, the Mohegan tribal chairman, because it’s happened before.

About a decade ago, when Rhode Island and New York started to expand their gaming facilities, Connecticut stood flat-footed, Brown said. A casino in Lincoln, R.I., and slots-only facilities in Yonkers, N.Y., and New York City have since flourished at the expense of Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun.

“Foxwoods once had 12,000 jobs,” Rappaport said. “Now it has 6,500.”

The tribes want the state to pass a law authorizing the partnership they formed, MMCT Venture, to develop a $300 million “satellite” casino north of Hartford. Brown said a decision on the proposed site — in either East Windsor or Windsor Locks — will be announced “in a few days.”

Uri Clinton, the MGM attorney who addressed the committee after the tribal representatives had left the room, said the state should open up the casino-approval process to any entity willing to compete for a license.

Some committee members questioned whether the tribes’ plan to develop a casino between Hartford and Springfield is the best way to go, despite the tribes’ assertion that their revenue-sharing agreements with the state are at stake. If commercial gaming were opened up to other casino operators, Brown said, the tribes would stop paying 25 percent of their slot-machine revenues to the state.

“I struggle with that compact,” Rep. Joe Verrengia, D-West Hartford, a committee co-chairman, said of the agreements. “The BIA would have to bless it,” he said, referring to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs' role in approving any amendment to the agreements.

“We have received an opinion from the BIA that this will not violate the compact,” Brown said.

Verrengia, saying he anticipated “further litigation” if the tribes were granted the exclusive right to build a third casino, asked if the tribes would be willing to bear such legal costs.

“That’s sort of an odd question,” Brown said. “If we were to lose our exclusivity, it will cost the state $250 million a year (in lost slots revenue) ...”

“I didn’t think my question was odd. I thought it was a pretty good question,” Verrengia said, prompting an apology from Brown.

Clinton suggested Connecticut legislators should look to the casino-approval processes that have played out in such states as Massachusetts and Maryland.

“You are considering creation of a brand new industry — one distinct from tribal gaming,” he said. “Commercial gaming law involves drafting regulatory standards, governed by state law. ... This cannot be seen as an extension of what you have. It’s the creation of a new industry.”

MGM already has sued Connecticut over the state’s enactment of the 2015 law that authorized the Mashantucket Pequots and Mohegans to form their joint venture and to seek casino site proposals from municipalities. After a federal judge granted the state’s dismissal of the case, MGM appealed to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where a decision is pending.

Under a “best practices” approach, Clinton said, the state could open up the process, charge application fees and licensing fees and set a tax structure that applies to both slot-machine and table-games revenue. Applicants could be compelled to negotiate host-community agreements that guaranteed “mitigation” payments to towns that would incur costs because of the presence of a casino.

Clinton said fees and payments could be imposed in such a way that they offset the money the state would lose by breaking its agreements with the tribes.

He also discounted the significance of the “technical guidance” the BIA provided in its letter to the tribes, noting it was issued under the Obama administration.

“You can Google what Trump has said about Connecticut tribes,” Clinton said, referring to derogatory remarks the current president made during a 1993 congressional hearing. Questioning the Mashantuckets’ authenticity, Trump said, “They don’t look like Indians to me.”

Clinton filed with the committee a copy of an MGM-funded study that concluded that a casino in southwestern Connecticut would generate more revenue for the state than one in north-central Connecticut. 

The Public Safety and Security Committee also heard from Ted Taylor, president of Sportech Venues, which operates the state’s off-track betting facilities, who sought consideration for the impact a third casino would have on Sportech locations, and Tony Ravosa, a member of a development group that pitched an East Hartford casino site to the tribes. Ravosa maintained that the site, a former Showcase Cinemas building on Interstate 84, is still the best site among those the tribes considered.

The chairmen of two Connecticut tribes that lack federal recognition also were scheduled to speak. Only federally recognized tribes can pursue tribal casinos.

A group of casino opponents had asked to participate but were turned down. Former Congressman Bob Steele, of Essex, a supporter of the Coalition Against Casino Expansion in Connecticut, said the group’s exclusion was troubling.

“Blocking out the public at this point is a major issue,” he said. “Sen. Tony Guglielmo (another committee co-chairman) fought to get it open and was rejected. The answer he was given was that it hasn’t been decided whether there will be a bill. But by then, the argument is far along. This is sophistry."

“This committee never met a casino bill it didn’t like — you know they’re going to push it through,” he said.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com