Two magic words

Water park?

Apparently, Glenn Marshall, head of the Mashpee Wampanoags, the tribe that recently recieved federal recognition and is looking to build a casino here in Massachusetts, has one big dream, and it's building a water park along with the gambling palace:

At 59, the Hyannis, Mass., native is most enthused not about the hotel or gaming or the convention center he would build on 525 acres in Middleborough, but a water park like the ones he's seen on other Indian reservations.

“The water park is for me,” he said in earnest. “I get to tell my grandsons, 'Hey, we're going to the water park today ... we're not traveling all the way to New Hampshire.' And, you know, it's an easy swallow for somebody to say we're going to the water park and then we're going to have a nice dinner. It's not always just about gaming.”

All that and more in this positive profile by Connecticut paper The Day. (A must-read for the write-up of his sit-downs with some state reps.)

The Day also has an editorial on the issue and its "domino effect": "Rhode Island will then, as a matter of self-defense, revisit the casino issue, and one by one, the dominoes will fall and legalized gambling will spread."

Marshall has an op-ed in today's Globe.

Tom Benner of the Patriot Ledger checks in with this article on where and what you can or can't gamble in the state.

The prospect of casinos is creating jobs in Massachusetts: Casino City Times is looking for gambling reporter/editor. In the compensation section: "...flexible spending accounts, private stock options, onsite work-out facility, and more." The ad is as amusing as the e-mail they give to dump your resume into: "greatjob@casinocity.com."

For those who missed it (I know I did), a profile of the tribe from Thursday's Globe.