If you’re a fan of playing the slots at a casino, you don’t have to take the ride up to Boston, Connecticut, or Plainville to have a little gambling fun. There’s now an option right off Route 140 in Taunton.

For decades, the SouthCoast has been hearing about a casino coming to the region. We've seen pitches from companies, lawsuits against the federal government, but what we've never had—until now—is a single (legal) bet placed here on the SouthCoast. That changed this week in Taunton.

The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe officially opened its doors to a welcome center this week. There aren’t any fancy restaurants, table games, or even dealers—at least not yet. But what they do have at the welcome center are 10 slot machines, fired up and ready to go.

The slot machines are housed in a rudimentary structure that sits on the site of the future home of what officials hope will become a much larger, fully developed casino. The casino is “in its infancy,” according to Jay Pateakos from Taunton’s Office of Economic and Community Development. “We don’t even have plans for a design yet.”

There’s no doubt this is a modest beginning, but everything has to start somewhere.

While a few rogue slot machines have popped up across the SouthCoast over the past decade, Taunton’s slot machines are the first legal ones in the region, approved by the state. In 2012, a former Fall River City Councilor pleaded guilty and served two years probation for operating illegal slot parlors—including one in the same shopping plaza as Fun 107.

 

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