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The city of Everett in Middlesex County, Massachusetts was the center of a lot of attention over the weekend. 19, 000 plus eligible residents votes to be decide who would be granted a license to build a billion dollar casino in the city, strategically situated close to the state capital , Boston.
When the ballot boxes were opened and the votes were counted, Steve Wynn, one of the most experienced casino magnates in the US, emerged the landslide winner, given the green light to bring a casino to their city in the first referendum of its type since Massachusetts legalized gambling.
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Steve Wynn / Bloomberg
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/ By Yoel Bermant/
Voters in Everett on Saturday gave their blessing to Steve Wynn in his bid to bring the first casino to Massachusetts with his $1.2 billion proposal receiving close to nine out of ten of all votes cast, with six thousand Everett residents having reported to cast their votes
What the decision to build a casino in the city means an immediate cash infusion of $30 million once the initial agreement is signed as well as an additional $25 million flowing into the city annually, if and when the casino opens its doors.
Wynn’s planning team have already submitted a proposal for planning position that will see the new casino built on a site covering 37 acres situated along the shores of the city’s Mystic River. Now that approval in principal has been granted Wynn’s legal team can now go through the procedures of applying for a casino operators from the state’s recently established Gaming Commission.
Despite being granted the right to build and operate his casino in Everett, it is still far from a foregone conclusion that the project will move past the planning stages, as Wynn is competing with two other casino opertaors in the Eastern part of Massachusets, one planning to build in the outskirts of the city of Boston itself, and another in the town of Milfford with the massive Foxwoods Resort group having had their bid accepted to build there.
Now the Massachusets Gaming Commission has to arrive at the decision as to which of these three sites will be the one where the first casino in the state will eventually be constructed. For the time being the commission are not releasing information on how soon they will be making their final decision on the situation of the casino. A decision that will be of fundamental importance for the site chosen, bringing it with it thousands of jobs during the construction stage, hundreds more when the casino project gets under way as well as bringing tens of thousands of visitors annually.
Speaking after the results of the vote were announced Wynn confirmed his satisfaction by stating that the voters of Everett have spoken clearly and decisively, with the vote heightening our company’s enthusiasm and dedication to this fine project.” We thank the voters of Everett for their support and for making all of our efforts so easy.” Summed up Steve.
Steve Wynn was born in the city of New Haven, Connecticut, although he spent most of his youth in Utica, New York. Wynn graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in English literature in 1963.
However Wynn has never had the opportunity to test his skills in either as, shortly after his graduation, he was called upon to take up the reigns of the family business after his father passed away suddenly. Steve Wynn succeeded in propelling the business, a modest chain of bingo parlors along the East Coast, into one of the largest gaming empires in the World, Wynn Resorts Limited, based around the strip in Las Vegas, where he owns some of the city’s largest landmark casinos as well as sites as far apart as Mississippi and Macau.
