 My pleasure to call to order the 246th meeting of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. It is about a quarter to six on June 26th, and we are at the aging center in the town of Plainville, unusually. We appreciate very much everybody coming out. We felt we had some important information to share, not only the quarterly update from the Plainbridge Park Casino folks, but also, and much more unusually, some of the results of the research project that we've done to assess the impacts, economic and social impacts of the casino on not only Plainville, but each of its surrounding communities as well. We'll be talking a lot more about that. But before I get started, there are a handful of real VIPs here, all of whom we met, many of whom we met in the early days, who are with us now. Senator Richard Ross is back here and has been a party to this process all along. Representative Liz Poyer is here, who has also been involved in this from the very beginning. Jennifer Thompson, the new town administrator, new to us, but we worked with Joe Fernandez. And we've heard great things about Jennifer Thompson filling Joe Fernandez's shoes. We also have two members of the Board of Selectment, George Sutherland and Jeff Johnson. They're also the chief of all the public safety, Chief Alfred and Chief Alexander, who's the IT honcho. Thank you very much. So to you all folks in particular, everybody is busy. We really appreciate your being here. We will start out as we always do with the approval of the minutes of the prior meeting, and we'll ask Commissioner Stebbins to do that. Good evening. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before I move that the minutes be approved, if I could direct your attention to page six up at the top, this is something that we're trying with the meeting minutes to kind of highlight and put some focus on follow-up items. So the meeting we had back on June 7th, I believe it was Commissioner O'Brien asked the representatives from Encore, Boston, Robert, and maybe come back and update us, provide some more detail about their daycare plan, both for employees and potentially for the, you should read, gaming school students, not employees. So it's kind of just a technique in putting the meeting minutes, let's try that again, together for future use that the public can quickly look through the meeting minutes, see what topics might have been discussed and what there might be some follow-up on, as well as maybe support our team and the staff to make sure that items don't slip through the cracks, but we've highlighted them, talked about them, and hopefully carry them over to an additional meeting. So we're trying it out. I'm happy to take any feedback, but if there isn't any, I'm happy to move that the minutes be approved. I just noticed it. I thought it's great. I think it's really a good idea. Okay, with that, Mr. Chairman, I'll move the minutes. We're new at this. Bear with us. 240 times. We'll get it right. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Commission approve the minutes of the June 7th, 2018 meeting subject to correction for any type of geographical errors or other non-material matters. Second. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. The ayes have unanimously. Commissioner Zuniga is not with us today, so the vote was 4-0. The next item on the agenda is Ambudzman Ziemba. John Ziemba has been the Ambudzman for the Gaming Commission for very much, very near the beginning of our time. He's been responsible for coordinating the relationships with many of you, reps and senators in the process, town officials, when the bidding was going on and then is in charge of maintaining the relationships with the surrounding and host communities, as well as particularly with the facility themselves. In this case, Plain Ridge Park Casino. He orchestrates a quarterly update by each of our licensees, and today I think he will introduce Plain Ridge Park Casino. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and commissioners. Good evening. We have, as you noted, Mr. Chairman, we have the quarterly report for Plain Ridge Park for the first quarter of this year, 2018. Joining us from Plain Ridge Park are Reuben Warren, Vice President of Finance, Kim Dixon, Vice President of Human Resources, and Michelle Collins, Vice President of Marketing. So let me just turn it over to the Plain Ridge Park crew. We're going to put the slide up. First of all, I want to thank the city of Plainville, our host community for inviting us here and allowing us to have the meeting and the facility. I think the lights just went out. Purposely? Yeah. Okay. So we want to thank them for welcoming us here. And so for us, we want to present our first quarter 2018 financials. For us, the first quarter, since we've been open in the three years, we've had our best quarter in 2018. That's with all the weather events in the winter. So 42 million net-slot revenues is what we produced in the first quarter. State taxes of 20.7 million. Total taxes, with state taxes being 16.9 million of that total. Resource taxes, 3.8%. Again, for us, this is a great story. This is a 10% increase over the prior two quarters. First quarters since we've been in operation. Great partnership with Lottery. The Lottery sales, this is the highest figure since we've been in operation. $894,000 for the first quarter of 2018. That's 19% over a prior year. And so great story for the Lottery. Great partnership. And again, for these guys, 20% increase. And for the property, 10% increase in the first quarter. So all the things that we're doing to plan and to bring exciting things to the property, it's showing itself and it's coming to fruition for us. Our total qualified spend by state, we spent $1.5 million. This is, I apologize, let me bring out my sign. Not sure. So $1.5 million in the state. And we kept 74% of that total in the state of Massachusetts. So $1.1 million was spent in the state. And the other states, Missouri, Michigan, Florida, Connecticut, Iowa, the top five other states that we spent money in to support the operation. Local spend. So this is the spend that we spend in our host and surrounding communities. Just under $200,000 for the first quarter. Rent them being the top allocation of these funds, 73%. Or about $140,000 of that. And that's mainly due to a project that we had in the first quarter to replace barn roofs for the racing area. And so diversity spend. What we're showing here on the chart is in the blue what our goals are for the property. 21% for a total diversity spend. And for women-owned enterprise, 12% is the goal. Minority-owned enterprise, 6%. And for veteran-owned businesses, 3% of our total spend is what we go out to try to accomplish in these categories. The orange is our first quarter. And so overall, we accomplished the goal in the first quarter with 22% overall of our total spend allocated to diversity areas. Women-owned right at the goal of 12%. Minority-owned at 7%. And our veteran-owned category at 3%. So again, great strides with getting out in the community to do our best to find new vendors. And also with projects that we have coming up, making sure we invite anyone that's in our database to bid on those projects to make sure we maintain. What's the Q4 spend? Our Q4 is the gray. So we just wanted to- From last? From Q4 2017. Yes. And again, that was due to an LED lighting project. So we had a local Plainville vendor that we gave that project to. And again, 39% was the goal that we met in the fourth quarter of last year. Great. Ruben, at some point we should probably work with you guys on your veteran businesses that you have partnerships with. As you know, the state now certifies veteran-owned businesses. It's a free and relatively quick process, we hope. But that only, not only kind of gets them in the queue to be counted as a veteran for your purposes, but at the same time, might open them up to other bidding opportunities around the state. Yeah. We love the idea. We do work with Derek Lennon and Jill Griffin to make sure that when we have projects, is there anything that we're missing? So we do work with that group, but absolutely we will look forward to working with the state on that. From a compliance standpoint, again, great story. It's a very clean story for us in the first quarter. We invite, on average, about a quarter million people through our doors every month. And so you can see here, on average, we check at our doors in the first quarter, just under 24,000 patrons. We have three entrances to the casino. We have it staffed with security officers that make sure that we check for IDs for anyone that looks under the age. And so for here, they checked under 24,000 people. And about 380, we prevent it from coming into the facility because either they didn't have IDs or five were miners and 73 were under the age of 18 years old or 21 years old. We did have one patron in January that did get past our security, took a few steps. They realized that they did not ID that person, so we quickly escorted them off the floor. They didn't game, they didn't drink, they didn't do any of that. So I think kudos to the property to have roughly 700,000 folks come through our doors and to not have an incident, I think, is a great story to tell. I'm going to turn it over to Kim Dixon for an employee update, an employment update. Before employment in Q1, our total employees for about 465 of that, 308 were full-time and 157 were part-time. This remains pretty consistent with our numbers from Q4. Our turnover continues to trend down. We typically have about 10% of our positions open at any given time. For diversity, for our employee makeup, we're at about 25%. So we're up about 2 percentage points from Q4. Our veterans remain the same at 5%. Massachusetts hiring is at 65%. Our local is down slightly, it's 34%. Does that local means Plainville or Plainville and surrounding? Plainville and surrounding communities. Male and female makeup, so we're at 46% male and 54% female. We're up about 6 percentage points for our females from last quarter. We continue to focus on our in-state hiring, so we do about three to four talent auditions per month. We've done the recruit military and the BBC job fairs in the spring, though that's Q2, so I'll hold that for the next meeting. A next slide. So women leading at Penn. So women leading at Penn is an initiative that our parent company has started. So of that, Michelle and I are co-champions for a group of 16 women at Plain Ridge Park. So we've been working with them and mentoring them, putting them in a program. We also, I'm a board member on the United Regional Chamber of Commerce. So we're partnering with them and their women's impact network to do a women's expo on September 25th of this year. Gail has graciously accepted our offer to be our keynote speaker. So she'll be our keynote speaker in September. It's about a half-day program, so we've asked Gail to speak at the lunchtime. We'll have women-focused businesses for part of the expo, as well as four different breakout sessions. So two different sessions where they can choose between one session or the other and at two points in time. And then at the end of the day, we are following that up with an Alive After 5 for a networking opportunity with the Chamber where everyone is invited. And I'm going to pass it over to Michelle. Good afternoon. So for local community, we continue to contribute to many of the associations, including Relay for Life. We partnered with the Red Sox and we do Winning Wednesdays. So for every win that they get on a Wednesday, we donate $777 to Relay for Life of North Attleboro. YMCA, Rentham Polar Plunge, which a few of our, including Rubin, participated in what it was. I heard very cold and frigid dancing with the stars. What day was that? It was in the middle of winter. Yes, snow still on the ground and water very cold. It was for a good cause. It was a good time. Habitat for Humanity and Lenore's Pantry. One of the things we were able to do at Lenore's Pantry was we had left over ham and turkey certificates that the customers didn't claim. So it was about $8,000 worth equivalent to about 400 turkeys or hams that they were able to utilize for local community. And then New Hope. We sponsored a comedy show with Dan Kendall in our loft. Q1 Partnerships. These remain consistent with what we've been doing quarter over quarter. Again, hotel stay and play packages for our VIP guests. Rentham Village Premium Outlets. We sponsor the valet there. Ness and Bruins, the radio stations, and of course the Celtics who disappointed me, but we're looking forward to the next season. And some marketing highlights. We did another event with Murphy's Boxing. We did a Celtics viewing party at Fluties. And Mark Gerard's big swing band. We did that in the loft where it was actually a swing band that performed and guests could participate. Some highlights for this quarter include our three-year anniversary, which we just had on Sundays. Happy birthday, Plain Ridge. VIP sneak peek for our High Limit Area. We are adding a new High Limit Area and lounge. So the High Limit Area is 500 square feet larger than the current area. It's going to have new product and machines for our High Limit Guests. And then the VIP lounge will be open to those who have an icon card, which is our highest level, tier level. So it'll allow them to go into an area, a quiet place. They can sit down, have a snack, and just relax and to get away from the gaming if they choose. And we also did a National Pet Day donation where we had 400 guests come in and donate for animals. And we donated it to North Adderborough Shelter. Great. You see opportunities coming up as we get into the warmer months. TPC, the Xfinity Center, things like that. Absolutely. So with the Xfinity Center, we're doing a promotion with the Beasley where we are hosting a pre-party at Fluties. And then there's a shuttle bus going over that takes all the winners from the contest to the concert. And then for TPC, we are sponsoring the Dell Championship this year. And we also just signed an agreement with them so that we can send our guests to play at TPC. That's great. That's for quarter two updates. Sorry. Okay. Jumping the gun. You're stealing my thunder. Sorry. I'll sound just as excited next quarter. Okay, good. Any other comments or questions or feedback? You're back. So it's apparent you're paying attention to all of these issues. It's really nice to see. And, you know, just keep up the good work. Thank you. Look forward to the women's leadership program. It's a good thing you're doing for folks. And just quickly, you mentioned some of it, but what else are you doing with these 16 women? So we've broken it up into two groups. Okay. I'm with eight of them and she's with the remainder of them. Right. They're one-on-one to kind of go over their career goals and what they want to do. Right. We're getting them involved in training and programs to help them develop their career path so that they can get there and really monitor what happens over the course of the next year and into their future to make sure what they're doing is part of what they want to be doing and not something we're just saying, hey, be part of this group and not really develop them. So our first session starts this month where we're kind of reviewing that book we had talked about, the Lean In. So we're excited to see how that goes. Okay, great. Thank you. If Representative Poirier doesn't mind, I'm going to tell you all something that she said to me that the feedback from her is that you all have been really attentive to the community and paid attention to nonprofit groups and so forth, and it is noticeable, I'm told, by one of the main public officials from around here. So that's a great credit. But what we're going to talk about in a minute is what else has happened as a consequence, but you followed through on commitments like this, and that's great. We're proud of that. Thank you. Thank you. Anything else on this item? No. All right. I'm going to get to item number four, which is the social and economic impacts of Plain Ridge Park Casino on Plainville and its other surrounding communities. We'll take a minute or two to set up. We'll change that over. Just keep clicking. So are we going there, Bruce? Should I ask the local? Yeah, we will. You already ate, right? So you don't want to go with us? Yeah, for social meals we can eat together. Seriously. That's one of the exceptions. Really? Great. I need the clicker over there. It's usually Enrique and Bruce and me. We're the... Oh, yeah. That's who you're going to be. All of Enrique. Yes. I like it. Yeah, it's all good. That was... We did hearings all over the state. Just as they were about the war. Yeah, oh, some nights we went so late. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God, yeah. This shouldn't be too late. Thank you. Okay, we are ready for item number four. Can everybody hear me? All right. We were out here probably, I don't know, four, four and a half years ago talking to public officials, talking to representatives of the cities and towns in this area, getting feedback on the pros and cons, getting feedback on the community's views of whether or not to have a casino here, and hearing a great deal from Plain Ridge Park Casino, Penn National at that point, on what they would offer and what they were promising to bring to the casino or to the communities. Two days ago was the third anniversary as the folks from Plain Ridge told you, and we now have about two full years' data of what has actually happened to the economics and the social fabric of this town and its surrounding communities. The hardest part of this whole project, by the way, was trying to figure out how you spell Attleboro and North Attleboro and Foxboro. So if I got it wrong, I tried. We will start out at the beginning, which as Senator Ross knows, the research project was founded in a legislative mandate in the Gaming Act to establish an annual research agenda to assist in understanding the social and economic effects of casino gambling in Massachusetts. This is an absolutely unprecedented research project, literally in the world. There's never been a time when the legislature established a mandate in the law before the casinos were set up to understand the baseline conditions, what are the gambling problems, what are the gambling attitudes, what are the crime rates, what are the traffic patterns, what are the unemployment rates, what are the business starts. All of those baseline conditions before the casinos come in and then track them on a longitudinal basis year after year after year after year. So the local communities who host this project and regulators like us and the legislature and our partners at the Department of Public Health have real data to know what's been going on. There's never been anything like this done before, literally, in the world. There are two key people to introduce before I get any further here who's made this possible. First is Mark van der Linden, who is our director of research and responsible gaming. When we saw this mandate in the law, there's also a mandate in the law that the legislature gave us to take responsible gambling and problem gambling very, very seriously. We needed to find somebody who had this breadth of experience, the passion, the interest to lead this project. We found Mark in Iowa. I proposed that he come to Massachusetts and he said no. But we signed up a few more allies and we brought him and his wife to the north end and took them out to dinner and eventually Mark and his wife and two kids moved to Massachusetts from Iowa. And he has been an indispensable part, all of this work that you're going to see comes under him in our office. The second is Dr. Rachel Volberg. Rachel is the lead principal investigator of all of the stuff you're about to see, and by the way, more. She is one of the top probably five, six or seven gambling researchers in the world. She is headquartered now at the School of Public Health at UMass Amherst and her team that she leads is made up of people not only from the School of Public Health at UMass Amherst, but also the Donahue Institute and the President's Office at UMass. Also Lethbridge University in Canada where our co-principal investigator Rob Williams resides and also members of the faculty from the University of Nevada Reno. So it's a big, big team. Rachel originally suggested to us how we might want to do this kind of tentatively, not really believing that maybe we really would want to take on this massive project, but we did. We had a competitive bid. Her team won and like Mark, if it weren't for Rachel drinking out of a fire hose for the last five years, this project wouldn't have happened. Incidentally she brought Alyssa Mazer with her who is her project manager and just like we couldn't survive without Rachel, Rachel couldn't survive without Alyssa. Okay, so quickly, there are two major studies, the social and economic impacts of gambling in Massachusetts, what we call SIGMA. That's the one that we have, the baseline study of all the variables that might be affected and the changes that occur to those variables over time. The second study called the Massachusetts Gambling Impact Cohort, MAGIC, which studies a cohort of Massachusetts citizens, three, four, five thousand Massachusetts citizens heavy up on people who have gambling problems or potential gambling problems and we study them year after year after year after year to see how they move in and out of gambling, what kinds of comorbidities, associated mental health or other problems do they have, what encourages them to get into problem gambling, what encourages them to get out. That's a whole other incredibly important study but it doesn't have to do directly with the social and economic impact so that will be the last you hear of MAGIC. The only issue here, you know the background of Plain Ridge Park Casino, the only issue here to highlight is June 24th, the opening date almost exactly three years from today. There are a handful of variables that are methodological, principles for the study, most of the methodology, I don't understand, you wouldn't either but there are some key points here. Critically identify how much money is involved, where is it coming from and where is it going. Not only the gambling money but the money from the casino to the communities, all the different ways money flows from the government to take care of the casino problems, identify how much money is involved, where is it coming from and where is it going. Second, as I said, assess impacts for years before and for years after the introduction of new gambling venues. One of the things all of the commissioners and I learned or heard when we were in the licensing process was much of the conversation about casinos, pro and con, was basically people yelling bumper stickers at each other. Casinos are great because of jobs and revenue. Casinos are terrible because of crime and prostitution. Very little data on what was really going on. Understanding that is obviously the single most critical variable. Comprehensively assess all potential economic and social impacts and utilize multiple sources of information. I'll talk about all the different social and economic impacts, multiple sources of information is not only all the quantitative data that you're going to see here but also we have a bunch of key informant interviews like Jennifer Thompson that we talk to important people in town who might have or in these towns who might have a view so we get qualitative perceptions of what's going on here as well as quantitative perceptions. And the final and astonishing last point is that in addition, we've identified communities around New England that are like Plainville and like Springfield and like Everett. So if something happens in Plainville, for example, if unemployment rises dramatically and we're trying to figure out did this have to do with the casino, we can also look at Hadam, Connecticut, what's that, New Hampshire? Can't read my handwriting. Pepero, Maine, Portland, Connecticut and Sturbridge, Mass. Those are towns which are demographically very similar to Plainville so we can go see maybe did unemployment rise everywhere so we compare what's happening here to other matched communities, similar communities to make sure we have an accurate understanding of what really happens here. We don't want to just know what happens in Plainville. We want to know whether or not the casino was responsible for it, good or bad. That's what we're here to try to figure out. So first of all the social impacts. This will blow your mind but here are the ones that we look at. Under problem gambling we look at the prevalence and incidents, incidents being the reoccurrences of gambling, treatment seeking, personal bankruptcy, divorce, domestic violence, et cetera. Crime, we look at overall crime rates. We'll talk about this at length. Attitudes towards gambling, population health, that is physical, psychological health, substance use and addictions, leisure activities, having the casino affect people's use of other leisure activities, demographic changes and the environment, traffic and noise, other environmental issues we can think of. That's a lot of stuff. The bottom, the first variable in the social is problem gambling and related indices. And we see that there are no significant changes in problem gambling or related industries, indices in the Plain Ridge Park, host and surrounding communities subsequent to the opening of Plain Ridge Park Casino. That's the bottom line assessment. There is specifically no significant change in problem gambling or at-risk gambling from the baseline targeted survey. We had 1,000 people targeted survey for this area and then we had a follow-up, the FTPS is the follow-on targeted population survey. So from 2014 to 2016 you can see at-risk gamblers in Plainville and surrounding communities were 6.7%. They went to 8.2. Problem gamblers went from 2.6 to 1.8. They more or less wash out. There's no great statistical significance. I have taken these slides. These are slides from Rachel Volberg's team. You see this logo down here. This is not the gaming commission's logo. We're not interpreting this information for you. We're taking what we've been told by our research team. I have dumbed this down a little bit so I can understand it. So some of the don't take 19.8 as an absolute percent versus 19.3 as an absolute percent. But in orders of magnitude these are accurate. If we get into any details, if you want real serious background information on this, Rachel can give it to you. But I've taken this down to a simpler format. There's no significant change from the baseline study for two years later, the follow-up study in problem gamblers who were wanting help. There were 16 problem gamblers studied in the study in the first round. There were 12 in the second round. There were 16 problem gamblers seeking help. There were 12 in the second round. No significant increase in problem gamblers wanting help or seeking help. No significant change from the baseline study, the pre-opening study, to the follow-on study in 2016 of regular gamblers reporting any negative impacts due to their gambling. There were, sorry, there were about 471 regular gamblers in that thousand-person survey. They were about reported, of those 471, eight reported financial problems as a result of their gambling. Two years later, about the same number, six, 1.7 to 1.4%. Same for all these other, we ask all regular gamblers, do you have problems, do you have any of these incidents in your life as a consequence of your problem gambling? And there's no appreciable change in any of these consequences of problem gambling. There's no significant, did I do this right? Yes. No reported change in the number of gamblers in Plainville. This is the first one of the key informant interviews. We also went and talked to the man who is the secretary, I think it's a man, who's the secretary for the New England Gamblers Anonymous. He said, we've got gamblers anonymous meetings here for 20 years. At present, about 15 people attend these meetings each week. We have not seen any increase in attendance since the Plain Ridge Park Casino opened. No change in personal bankruptcy filings in Norfolk County. We can't get bankruptcy filings by each town, we can only get it by county. But Norfolk County, the red line here, no change in personal bankrupt filings in Norfolk County where Plainville is situated. No changes in divorce filings, restraining orders, or cases of child welfare involvement in Norfolk County. All these numbers of anything that you see are going down a little bit. Plainville key informants reported this, no obvious impacts. I don't really see any impact on the health and well-being of the people of Plainville. Conditions now seem to be, as they were, prior to the opening of the casino, Lula Blank, chairman of the Board of Health. Residents have not come to us with concerns that there have been an increase in problem gambling. Jennifer Thompson, town administrator. Now crime rates. We work with Chief Alfred in Plainville and the chiefs in all of the surrounding communities to go over their crime incidents item by item to determine whether they had anything to do with Plainridge Park Casino. Here's the bottom line in these two years. PPC, the Plainridge Park Casino itself, has not significantly increased overall crime in the host and surrounding communities. But there was an increase, a temporary increase in credit card fraud, and there have been reports of lost property and suspicious activity in Plainville likely attributable to PPC. Overall, in crime, not much of an issue, but an increase in credit card fraud and a not insignificant increase in reports of lost property and suspicious activity. May I? Sure, please. This is a project... Michelle Cameron is the former Lieutenant Colonel of the New Jersey State Police and is our liaison with all of our crime research and Chief Alfred. And this one is always... I think our crime analysts, there was no other reasonable explanation for a rise in credit card fraud. So, thus the term likely, Chief Alfred will attest to the fact he has scrubbed every single report and there is no evidence that any of this crime is attributed to the casino. Am I stating you? Chris is our crime analyst. And the good news is the second year there was no increase. In fact, it went back to the level that it was before that. So, whatever happened that one year, it's pretty much, we can't explain it. This is actually, I think, this is a really interesting point. I think pretty much all of the Chiefs felt that they could not figure out any relation between the credit card fraud and the casino. But our researcher said, I can't prove that it is not because of the casino. Since I can't prove that, I have to put it out there that it's possible that it had to do with the casino. And I think that tells you, and I hope this is important, and that people hear this, we're not whitewashing these numbers. We could have, if we'd followed the Chief's suggestion, pretty much taken credit card fraud away. But we can't prove that it didn't come from the casino, so we're going to put it out there as something that we need to think about. Plainville police statistics show an increase in property crime, total crime, and calls for service at the casino itself in the two years after it became a casino compared to the two prior years. Total crime offenses at the facility itself went from 10 average prior two years to 90, subsequently. Property crime offenses went average from 6 to 47. There were no violent crime offenses, calls for service to the department went up substantially from 1,100 to almost 1,600. This is just at the facility itself. However, increased crime... Chief, you had something there? Yeah, sure. And the interesting thing here too, Chief, and you can attest to this, is they're all solved. Because there are cameras everywhere in the casino, our success rate for solving, and there, you know, someone will steal someone's tickets, right, from the machine. But the combined efforts of Plain Ridge PD and the state police working hand in hand, they solve all these crimes. It's an amazing... Yes. Right. That's, I will tell you, I wasn't predisposed to crime anyway, but if I were, I've learned that the stupidest place to be a criminal is at a casino. Thank you. I was going to make that point later on. Apropos, you know, there's more traffic issues because there's more traffic, there's more criminal incidents and calls for service because there's more people. Nevertheless, these are the facts. However, increased crime at Plain Ridge Park Casino itself has not produced increased crime in Plainville from the 2010 to 2015 pre-opening period to the two years of operation. So you see down here that actually overall in Plainville, total crime offenses have decreased, property crimes have decreased, violent crimes have gone up. This is what the research call not statistically significant. It's a very small sample. These numbers, because there are so few violent crimes in Plainville, they go up and down. Nevertheless, this is something to watch. We don't think at the moment that this has anything to do with the casino. The chief is back there shaking his head, but it's something that we will watch. That being said, of the 46 individual types of crime and calls for service that we check into, seven did significantly increase from the baseline period to the operating period, whereas one of the 46 significantly decreased. Examination of the original written police reports suggests that credit card fraud only, lost property reports and reports of suspicious activity are the only instance likely attributable to PPC. Are you on your way, Senator? Thank you very much for coming. Thank you very much. Oh, wow. Exactly the information that we had gathered on all of this before this licensing. I was told by a previous governor that it never happened, and I'm proud that we're the only places that have been running in the Commonwealth. Right. For three years, thank you representative. I appreciate your coming. Thank you. Yeah, it's all my doing. I came up with the commission, right? I know it's him. You got it. She runs the shop. Yeah, I know. Thank you. We'll send Commissioner Cameron off to talk to you. Thank you. No significant change to get back here. I am very much aware that I'm doing something speakers are not supposed to do, which is pouring out a ton of information. It's all going to be on the web. Anybody that wants, you're not going to pick up very much of this, but I thought it was important that you get a fire hose of information that gives you a sense of the totality of this project and a broad brush as to what the problems have been and where the problems have not been. So my apologies for the amount of information, but I hope that by the end of this, you'll feel it was time well spent. There's been no significant change in the number of illegal gambling offenses in Plainville. Kind of interesting. The collective police force statistics for the host and surrounding community find a significant decrease in property in total crimes, but a small increase in violent crimes. The same as Plainville itself. Decrease in total, decrease in property, increase in violent, again, not associated. Anybody can figure out with the casino, but something to keep an eye on. This is the same thing that some did go, I'm subject to a doubt. What I want to point out here is examination of the original written reports. The police analyst, crime analyst, works with each of the five or six police departments, goes through their written incident reports, helps them make sure that they do a sign causality where they came. It's a DUI. Where was he last drinking? Was it at Plainville Park Casino? We've even hired and paid for, if I'm not mistaken, a partial crime analyst for the town of Mansfield, if I'm right, so they could do their part to analyze this data. So it's that level of detail when we're coming up with these kinds of conclusions. Just one comment there. I am so grateful to the police chiefs for embracing this project. To our knowledge, it's never been done anywhere. I've spoken about this project in Las Vegas and other places and they said, how did you get busy police departments to work with you? I said, we asked nicely and they really did and embraced this and sit around brainstorming and it's good for everyone really, but we are very, very I am very grateful and it's good for all of you because the police departments are working really hard to try to figure out what's going on and to keep this whole area safe and secure. So I just wanted to... And we're building on this experience, on your experience with your chiefs in Springfield and in Everett to work out these same kinds of relations of using the success we've had with you all. So thank you for that as well. Last crime data, no significant change from the baseline period to the operation period in the number of regular gamblers who report that their gambling has caused them to commit an illegal act or be arrested. It was very few of them cops to an illegal act either in 2014 or in 2016 which is an increase that we can see. So that's crime. The next category and the problem gambling is there is evidence... is attitudes. There is evidence of a significant shift of attitudes toward gambling in the host and surrounding communities. There is a decrease in the percentage of people who think gambling is not available enough. They used to be 27% said there's not enough gambling now it's down to 12, that makes some sense. And there's an increase in the percent that the current availability is fine the same number going the other way. So obviously having the casino here has satisfied people who thought there was too little and dissatisfied people who thought there was already too much. In addition there's a decrease in the percent of people who think the casinos are beneficial to Massachusetts. Now this is interesting. It's the casinos here it's gone from 44% believing they're beneficial to 33% believing they're beneficial. This is one snapshot in time remember this is not a perfect picture 10 years from now you'll see these same numbers and then you can really see trends. But in the near term that's a significant change. And there's an increase in the percentage who believe that the casinos are neither beneficial nor harmful about the same number. Plainville key informants about positive attitudes. Overwhelmingly the people in Plainville are happy the casino is here. Jennifer Thompson is the most renowned administrator. I would have to say that everyone I come across is pleased with the casino to this point it's come through with all the promises that were made Lula Blank chairman of the Board of Health. Next we get to population health. There is no evidence of any change in population health no significant change from the baseline period to the post operating period in health happiness or stress. No significant change from baseline to operations and the percent of people who reported drinking help for their use of alcohol or drugs or who reported having a behavioral addiction. No significant change from baseline pre opening to operations rated that change their rating of importance of gambling as a recreational activity. These are the kinds of things that people do worry about when you hear a casino is coming. How is it going to interact there's going to be more drugs more drinking more alcoholism more drug addiction as yet no evidence of such change. Demographics does having the casino change the demographics of the host and surrounding communities. There is very little reason to anticipate changes in population or in demographic characteristics in the host and surrounding communities because the casino isn't big enough to have a demographic impact and in fact there have been no changes attributable to the Plain Ridge Park casino. Plain Ridge population has increased faster than in other areas of the state but this trend was already going on before the casino was here. The Plain Ridge Park casino employee survey found that only 75 employees of Plain Ridge Park casino reported moving to take their job and of those only 13 moved into Plainville. So it's another problem that people worry about there's going to be lots of people coming lots of kids more demands for our public services more demands for our schools that has not happened and in fact Lula Blank says we haven't seen an impact an influx in the school system so they have not reported any direct impact from the casino. Now we get to environment. There is evidence of some environmental impacts. There were noise complaints in Plainville associated with post with PPC construction but there are not noise complaints in its operation. Plainville has increased has experienced an increase in traffic complaints non-trivial numbers. Traffic volume in Plainville has increased 9% from 2014 when construction began to 2016 don't worry about these numbers but the increase is a 9% increase in traffic volume in Plainville. Traffic complaints have a significantly increased in Plainville and to a lesser extent in the host and surrounding communities. Plainville had a 5.4% increase from pre-opening to the operation period 5.4% increase in traffic collisions traffic complaints went up substantially 40% increase in traffic complaints. Similar at the host and surrounding communities but traffic collision 8.5% traffic complaints 13% much smaller but obviously this is in fact a negative consequence of having a casino here as the chief said it's pretty similar to what would happen if you put a target or a mall nevertheless these are in fact negative consequences of having the casino here. Traffic fatalities in Norfolk County have increased slightly now we're in the county again not Plainville traffic fatalities in Norfolk County have increased slightly in construction 2013 Norfolk County had 28 fatalities you see 48, 30, 30 trees a substantial increase in Norfolk County fatalities however attribution to the casino was weak both because the traffic fatalities are for the entire county and because traffic fatalities have also increased in the state as a whole from 2013 to 351 statewide to 389 similar to the increase in Norfolk probably has nothing to do with the casino Plainville key conformance Lutola Blank chairman of the board of health during construction the board of health received some complaints about construction activity dust complaints, noise complaints we went out there with noise meters took ambient noise levels and everything was found to be within tolerance and specs for a construction site there were no violations issued we have received no noise complaints since construction has been completed Jennifer Thompson we have virtually no issues in terms of traffic or congestion because of the casino it actually runs better than it did before Kathleen Parker treasurer of Plainville where the track and casino was located it is the most dangerous intersection in town but it was dangerous long before the casino got there we actually lost a police officer in a road accident he was killed by a driver while that intersection was being rebuilt they've done a lot to make it safer so here's the summary of the social impacts of the casino on Plain Ridge and the surrounding communities no impacts to date in terms of problem gambling or related industries the lack of the impacts of the casino on problem gambling and related issues is probably the high level of casino gambling in this area prior to Plain Ridge Park casino opening because you've got Connecticut and Rhode Island so close 23% of adults in this area already gambled in casinos so perhaps adding in the Plain Ridge Park casino was not that big a deal crime no impacts on overall crime in the host and surrounding communities however they did see a little the temporary increase in credit card fraud we've talked about the increase in reports of lost property and suspicious activity part of this increase is attributable simply to the increased volume of visitors as the chief said summary of attitudes appears to be a greater satisfaction with the current availability of gambling there's also the population is now more evenly split about whether casinos are beneficial or not population health no impacts to date demographics no impacts to date in the environment there were noise complaints during construction not during operation Plainville has experienced substantial increase in traffic volume and traffic complaints bear with me we're getting there this is the impacts of the casino the economic impacts of the casino on Plain Ridge on Plainville and its surrounding communities sorry here again is the list of the economic issues that we look at impacts of the direct expenditure and revenue from the casino we're looking at Plain Ridge we're also looking at Springfield and Encore Boston Harbor we're also looking at the number of business establishments the changes in industry mix the casino impacts on other gambling because that's a business levels of employment, labor force participation unemployment, wages poverty rate, gambling participation as a function of income property values, residential building permits rental cost, expenditure by the government and revenues to the government that's the whole kit and caboodle first is the impacts of the direct casino expenditure and revenue the building and operation of Plain Ridge Park casino has had several clear positive economic impacts at both a statewide very modest and regional level there's a lot here Plain Ridge spent $150 million to build the casino almost 7% of that money was spent within Massachusetts I won't go through the rest of the details but 80%, 87% of $150 million was spent in Massachusetts and a substantial amount of that was in Norfolk and Bristol counties sorry the construction employment the number of people on the construction payroll averaged about 554 across each of the quarters of the construction period with about 81 or 2% from Massachusetts the legislature envisioned this as a bill to employ people and to create economic impact it created 82% of the employment at this facility from people of Massachusetts the operating revenues from PPC overall started going up this is horse racing, lottery sales and gambling revenue as well as gambling revenue $104 million the casino had only been open for half a year up to $176 million up to $187 million $186 million in calendar 2017 was operating costs of the casino and an additional 4 million or so was spent in 2016 on other retail establishments and shopping other amenities in the area which was part of the idea bring people in, get them to go to the casino but hope that they spend some time at other amenities, restaurants etc in the area gambling constitutes 95% of all of the operating revenue at the casino you'll be interested to know in Las Vegas I think it's 40% of the overall revenue is gaming revenue you think gambling is what Las Vegas is all about but over half of the revenue in Vegas is restaurants, hotels shows and so forth at Plambers Park Casino 95% of the revenue is from gambling where are the sources where do these folks come from where does the money come from the patron survey we interviewed a bunch of the patrons on a random basis coming into the facility 11.4% of the patrons came from Plainville and surrounding communities 67% came from other parts of Massachusetts 20% came from out of state the sources of the revenue PPC patron survey the same survey indicates the largest source of revenue is what we call recaptured revenue from mass residents who would have gambled out of state if we didn't bring Plainbridge Park Casino to the state required recaptured spending by in-state patrons about $100 million $58 million of the total revenue of the casino this was a critical feature in the decision to have casinos we figured all this money was going out of state if we had our own casinos use it to employ Massachusetts citizens and take that our share of the tax revenue interestingly the impact on the other casinos in Connecticut and Rhode Island has not been that great there definitely has been some but it hasn't been that great the blue is Connecticut the yellow or whatever this is is Rhode Island they were dropping already for a while when Plainville opened Plainbridge opened in 2015 they've sort of stayed steady there hasn't been much change Mr. Chairman one of the disadvantages everybody thought to Massachusetts casinos was going to be the fact that we don't allow smoking and I had a chance to meet a couple who were coming from Connecticut this is obviously just anecdotal but coming from Connecticut to Plainbridge for the sole purpose of the fact that smoking was not allowed inside the facilities we hear positive feedback from employees that don't have to put up with it every day but it's interesting that Massachusetts now has this niche for people that don't want to be around smoking that they're coming to Massachusetts casinos it's not at all clear that that's a negative if you're right that's really interesting again in the employee survey in the first year Plainbridge Park Casino hired 893 people 64% full time of the 893 41% were from southeastern mass 26% were from the metro area an additional and about almost 30% were from out of state we told you before 75 people moved to take the employment only 13 people moved into Plainbridge what's interesting about this they hired 893 people in the first year but the average employee level was only a little over 500 so there was a tremendous turnover level you heard the people from Plainbridge talking about it I think Kim maybe it was you their turnover has gone way down as they have gotten people have gotten accustomed to the work but this gives you an idea of the kind of turnover there was in the first instance but also how many people were hired locally almost half from the southeastern mass region significant portion of the jobs at Plainbridge Park Casino were net new jobs 15.5% of the people who took these jobs were completely unemployed and 35% were employed part time so these were taking people which the legislation wanted to do target unemployed and underemployed people and give them economic opportunity 50% of the jobs went to people who were either unemployed or were employed part time previously next category is business establishments there may be note the word may there may be a small increase in the number of businesses in Plainville attributable to the casino in terms of the impacts on other gambling industries PPC has increased lottery sales in Plainville and has stabilized horse racing revenue at the park businesses of Plainville increased 13% from 2009 to 2016 but only 2% of that happened subsequent to the casino opening in 2014 from 2009 to 2016 there's a 10% increase in surrounding communities 9% in Norfolk and Bristol counties 16% in mass so maybe there's a little bit of an impact of the casino in increasing businesses I would say a fuzzy impact at best bankruptcies from 2015 and 2016 have increased in Norfolk County again not the city but Norfolk County to a greater extent than either Hamden County which is where MGM is or Middlesex where they on core casino however this is within the naturally year to year variation of bankruptcies and there's no strong attribution to Plain Ridge Park Casino again Plainville Plainville key informants on business establishments wow we've had an awful lot of influx of new businesses we have no problem keeping restaurants in towns very healthy that was one of the problems people were worried about oh it will knock the small restaurants out no that is not true they are thriving Kathleen Parker treasurer we've had a lot of interest in the surrounding areas along Route 1 the sections of Route 1 where you see the really large developments coming in they were undeveloped so there's nothing there so it's not like they're driving out the small businesses the area is really becoming a destination Janet for Thompson on the corner of the diagonal opposite of the casino I've had plans come through my board for two hotels a restaurant a small wastewater treatment and some housing all in that opposite corner Lula Blank chairman of the board no significant change in participation in any type of gambling except private betting private betting as if you just have bet us on a card game or something with your friends or the outcome of your high schools football game no changes that having the casino come did not change the percentage of people who were doing lottery games raffles out of state casinos etc. no significant impact on other gambling there has been a revenue decline in charitable gambling bingo at churches for example in Norfolk County not in Plainville surrounding communities but in Norfolk County the decline is smaller than the declines in Hamden counties and Middlesex counties which don't have casinos so we don't think there's any relationship between the drop in charitable gambling and the casino Plainville is because the race courses have a significant increase in the number of races from 780 in the year before opening to 1092 now and have stabilized the amount wagered we hope that going from 30 million in 2015 to 35 in 2016 I don't have the 2017 number we hope it's going up but at a minimum it's been a very positive effect for the horse racing industry many more horses, better horses and at least stabilized what was a declining amount of wagering again key informants the conditions prior to the casino we did have a race track here and it was struggling it was almost economically unviable and now it's one of the prized places to race so that has helped out the local economy and has rejuvenated the horse racing industry here Lula Blank Twin Rivers have big billboards on Route 1 right near the Plain Ridge Park casino they weren't doing that before they do radio commercials they also do TV commercials locally I guess Lula Blank is suggesting there is an impact on the gaming establishments in the other states significant increase in lottery sales at Plain Ridge Park Casino subsequent to becoming a casino this is lottery sales in the rest of the state and in Plain Ridge before the lottery and this is what happened to lottery sales at the casino itself nobody really expected this but the casino has become a tremendous source of sales of lottery tickets again something that the legislature was very concerned about they insisted that the casino work with the lottery set up a mechanism for selling lottery tickets for promoting lottery tickets and it's obviously had a tremendous impact in terms of lottery sales employment there is evidence of an increase of employment numbers in the town of Plain Ridge a Plainville partly attributable to PPC Plainville's 372 businesses employed 14 people in 2016 an increase of 17% this compares to a 4% state growth and a 3.2% in Norfolk and Bristol counties there is reason to think that employment is being driven up by as a consequence of Plain Ridge Park Casino Plainville I mentioned this one before this one is not really worth talking about relative to the key informants about employment one of the key things that casino promised to do was to reach out to Plainville folks first in terms of employment which they did they kept their word they are a largest employer in Plainville it has certainly had an impact Jennifer Thompson as far as employment goes it has definitely been a positive rank personal income it's possible that the slight increase in wages and slight decrease in poverty rate in Plainville is attributable to the casino Plainville experienced a larger increase in average wage 8.2% than either Norfolk and Bristol counties or the state almost double the increase of personal income in Plainville from Bristol and Norfolk 3.4 or the state 4.8 our researchers think that this difference may have something to do with the casino this is an incredibly interesting one although the poverty rate increased slightly in Norfolk County and Massachusetts from pre-operation period to operations it decreased in Plainville and the 3.6% current rate in Plainville is significantly lower than both Norfolk County and the state if we could all take that one to the bank we would have some pretty serious something to talk about potentially an increase in wages not just as employment but in wages and a decrease in poverty levels real estate and housing it seems unlikely that Plainwich Park casino is at an impact on property values or commercial or industrial real estates I'm going to run through these quickly because that's the conclusion that there is no real impact there has been a small rise in single family home sale prices in Plainville but the rise in home sale prices is comparable to the broader region in the state and in fact surrounding communities witnessed a more sizable increase this is Plainville it's going up it looks like it's going up a lot but I'm sorry to say that the casino probably cannot take credit for that impact similarly the opening of the casino was associated with higher median sale prices of condos in Plainville and the surrounding communities however this simply may be a continuation of trends that started before the license was awarded this is 2010 still at the end of the recession started to move up long before the casino opened here's when the casino the license is awarded here's when the casino opened probably the rising condo prices does not have to do with Plainridge Park casino so preliminary conclusions on residential impacts Plainridge Park casino did not positively impact average home prices in Plainville and surrounding communities home region condo prices have risen after Plainridge Park casino opened it's difficult to attribute this rise to PPC because it's similar to more distant communities and the state and it is probably part of a trend of increasing real estate values across the Commonwealth key informants confirm the sections of route one where you see the really large developments in they were undeveloped so there was nothing there it's not like they're driving out the small businesses Jennifer Thompson I don't think the casino is big enough to have an impact on the real estate market there wasn't a large enough influx of employees to drive the prices or make residents scarce I think the whole market has been trending up so it would be difficult to attribute that to Plainridge Park when it is happening all over the state Lula Blank I think that corresponds almost exactly with the conclusions of our quantitative research as well government and fiscal costs and revenues there are some increased government costs help the larger police department so forth however this is offset by the significant financial gain from gross gaming revenue the revenues to the casino as well as the direct payments that go from the casino to the host and surrounding communities and the overall contribution of local aid that comes from the tax on casino revenues almost all of which goes to local aid this is the distribution of local aid ignore this these numbers down here I just want to give you a synopsis approximately in round numbers the total gross gaming revenue for Plainridge Park casino in these two years we're studying gross gaming revenue is all of the money bet minus all of the money paid out in winnings something people don't know very well is that of all the money bet the casino typically keeps about 90 sorry about 8 or 9 7, 8, 9 percent 92, 91 93, 90 percent of the money gambled goes back in winnings so gross gaming is the amount of gross gaming revenue is the amount of money that the casino keeps to cover all of its expenses to pay taxes and to make a profit in these two years the gross gaming revenue for Plainville has been about 320 million dollars the state share of that 320 million is about 160 million and local aid aid to cities and towns which is on this chart went up by about 130 million that's in two years but to get an idea the lottery which is the primary source of local aid to cities and towns in Massachusetts gives about a million dollars a year all of sorry a billion dollars a year to cities and towns Plain Ridge Park casino itself is giving 60 to 70 million 6 to 7 percent from that one little facility so it's an extraordinary contribution to local aid from the casino summary of economic impacts there have been significant economic impacts at a statewide level all three casinos have done this all three casinos are producing significant economic benefits at the regional level business establishments Plain PPC has increased lottery sales stabilized horse racing revenue and may have increased the overall number of businesses PPC has increased local employment PPC there's a possibility of a slight impact at a regional level with an increase in average wages and a decrease in the poverty rate at Plainville no impact the statewide level on real estate and housing no obvious impacts at the regional level minor costs to the host surrounding communities of having Plain Ridge there but completely offset and more by increases in revenue that my friends is the end of what was 90 slides so what I wanted to I'll let you make your own conclusions as to whether this is good, better and different how does it compare to what you were expecting when I say you I hope I'm also talking to some people who are watching this online if not we've done an awful lot of talking to an awful few people but we really thought it was important for you to understand how seriously we take the mandate to understand what's happening good, better and different what's happening to any of the variables that might be affected by casino gambling everything from traffic that we all know about problem gambling that we all know about to domestic violence rates property values unemployment anything you can possibly think of knock on wood right now I think the bottom line is looking pretty good very very few negative impacts quite a few substantial impacts there's many more years to come the other two casinos are much bigger the impacts will be much greater they may be much more negative in some cases we hope they will also be much more positive but again our mission was to come back to you after we were out talking to you about whether or not you ought to have a casino in this town and when Penn National and now Plain Ridge Park casino were telling you what they were going to do and what the consequences of their casino were going to be and let you have the opportunity to draw your own conclusions I'm happy to take questions I'm also happy to go home anybody alright well with that anything else from the other commissioners no excellent job I think it is a good news story I do too but I don't think that should come from us you know I want to say that but I want you all to make your own conclusions all this information is readily available on our website the two or three slides that I raced through wasn't because I didn't want you to see them that was just too much detail every single thing we have is available to you at any time so I think I'll have a motion to adjourn so moved second all in favor aye thank you