Absentee ballots to determine fate of Tiverton casino

TWIN RIVER Management Group's proposed Tiverton casino features a two-story, 85,000-square-foot facility with 1,000 slot machines and 32 table games. / COURTESY TWIN RIVER MANAGEMENT GROUP
TWIN RIVER Management Group's proposed Tiverton casino features a two-story, 85,000-square-foot facility with 1,000 slot machines and 32 table games. / COURTESY TWIN RIVER MANAGEMENT GROUP

TIVERTON – Voters statewide and in Tiverton appear to have cleared the way for a casino here, but a spokeswoman for the group behind the project said they are awaiting local absentee ballot results before declaring victory.
“We are cautiously optimistic, but are awaiting [the] absentee ballot count locally,” Patti Doyle, a spokeswoman for the Twin River Management Group, said in an email Wednesday.
The town clerk’s office said the absentee ballots are expected to be counted by the R.I. Board of Elections on Thursday.
Unofficial results posted on ri.gov show that the question passed statewide 214,230 to 172,446, or 55.4 percent to 44.6 percent, However, in Tiverton, the referendum passed by only 351 votes, 3,912 to 3,561, or 52.3 percent to 47.7 percent. Twin River needed a majority of statewide voters, as well as a majority of voters in Tiverton, to approve the referendum for it to pass.
The owner of Twin River Casino in Lincoln wants to transfer the license now held by Newport Grand LLC in Newport to the Tiverton site for a $75 million facility featuring 1,000 slot machines, 32 table games, restaurants and a hotel. It is expected to employ approximately 600 people.
John E. Taylor Jr., chairman of Twin River Worldwide Holdings Inc., has said that the Tiverton casino will allow Rhode Island to better compete with casinos set to operate in Massachusetts.
Twin River has said it wants to open the casino in Tiverton by mid-2018.
In 2016, Newport Grand generated $26.7 million in revenue to the state, according to the R.I. Department of Revenue. The amount is expected to grow to $68 million once the Tiverton casino opens, according to a study released by Twin River Management Group.

No posts to display