Massachusetts Tribe Opens Welcome Center With 10 Gaming Machines

Posted on: January 19, 2025, 11:10h. 

Last updated on: January 19, 2025, 11:14h.

A federally recognized tribe in Massachusetts has officially become a gaming community after opening a small welcome center that features 10 slot-like machines.

Mashpee Wampanoag Massachusetts casino
The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe has opened its welcome center in Taunton. The Massachusetts tribe hopes the small gaming facility will build excitement for a casino resort in the region. (Image: CBS News)

It was only in December when the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe in Southeast Massachusetts announced plans to build a welcome center in Taunton roughly 35 air miles from its original reservation on Cape Cod. Tribal leaders said the facility would be a place for the public to learn about the sovereign community’s history, connect with its culture, see what’s next for the reservation, and gamble a bit.

A little over a month later, the welcome center is open. There was no construction, as the Mashpee simply brought in a modular structure.

It’s been a long road for the tribe and this city,” said Brian Weeden, chair of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe.

The 2,200-square-foot facility is on Stevens St. in East Taunton on sovereign land owned by the tribe. The center is operating Tuesday through Saturday from 10 am until 5 pm. Extended hours will begin Jan. 26 when the welcome center holds its grand opening. 

Slot-Like Devices

During the soft opening of the tribe’s welcome center, the gaming machines are spinning and providing real money payouts to players. While the games appear to be the same slot machines one would find inside Encore Boston Harbor or MGM Springfield, the terminals are actually electronic bingo-based devices.

Since the Mashpees do not hold a Class III gaming compact with the state, the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act limits the tribe’s gaming to Class I and II gaming. Class I gaming includes low-stakes gaming. Class II gaming includes bingo, pull tabs, and punch boards.

Over the decades, tribes and gaming manufacturers have gotten clever in designing terminals that look, sound, and operate like Las Vegas slots but are bingo-based devices.

Available games include Forbidden Treasures and Cash Storm. The cabinets are from Aries Technology, a gaming manufacturer and distributor that sells and licenses gaming machines to Native American communities.

During the soft opening, proceeds from the games are being directed to tribal charities. Come Jan. 26, the gross revenue will go to a general fund controlled by the Mashpee Wampanoag government. 

Casino Development

For more than a decade, the Mashpee Wampanoag has been trying to open a tribal casino resort that would strengthen the tribe’s economic sovereignty. Currently, the tribe’s business interests rely on a wholesale shellfish farm where oysters are the primary product.

The federal government has impeded the Mashpee’s road to becoming a casino tribe. The Interior Department’s Bureau of Indian Affairs issued contradicting opinions during recent presidential administrations, with politics in play in determining whether the federal trust should accept the tribe’s 321 acres of land it acquired in Taunton in 2015.

Last April, the United States Supreme Court upheld a lower federal court’s rejection of a lawsuit brought by citizens of Taunton challenging the federal government’s 2022 accepting of the land into trust under President Joe Biden’s Interior Department. The SCOTUS decision exhausted the citizens’ lawsuit, but it might have come too late for the tribe.

The Mashpees’ partner and financier on the once-proposed $1 billion First Light Resort Casino was Malaysia-based Genting Group. The multibillion-dollar conglomerate, which owns integrated resort casinos in New York and Las Vegas, along with properties in the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, United Kingdom, and The Bahamas, bailed on the project amid the changing DOI opinions and legal challenges.