The winners were the Mashantucket Pequots, who beat out Steve Wynn, then heading Vegas-based Mirage Resorts, as the state-chosen prospective developer.Ī look at where they all are today provides a little more explanation about why the Fairfield County establishment did not then, and would not now, welcome a casino.Īfter all, the two politicians most associated with the Bridgeport casino planning, Rowland and Ganim, later went to jail for taking favors.Īnd Wynn, a titan of Las Vegas and one of the principal bidders in Bridgeport in 1995, is now starring in a raging national scandal, accused of years of sexual harassment and assault.

John Rowland was also a big proponent of building a casino in Bridgeport. It was fear for his Atlantic City casinos that first brought Donald Trump to the Bridgeport table in the 1990s, hooking up with then Mayor Joe Ganim as his local political muscle, as he proposed a theme park that might morph into a casino. Maybe most important, the business prospects for a Bridgeport casino are much worse today, given the opening of a second casino in Connecticut and many more in Pennsylvania and New York in the decades since.Ī Fairfield County casino hardly would be the home run it seemed like it could be in 1995, with nearby New Yorkers then starved of other options outside Atlantic City. The logistical problem, too, of voiding the tribal/state agreement that provides hundreds of millions from reservation slot machines, still exists today. That is still the toxic political environment for anyone proposing a casino in Bridgeport today.

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