New Hampshire towns block casinos using new opt-out law

Eight New Hampshire municipalities have moved to block casinos from being opened within their borders, taking advantage of a new state law that gives communities the power to opt out of hosting gambling establishments.

Amy Manzelli, president of the board of Granite Staters for Responsible Gaming, said the law, which took effect last year, has been widely welcomed by residents who value the ability to have a direct say in which establishments shape the character of their town or city.

“In New Hampshire, there’s a pretty deep and passionate vein of local control,” she said. 

Henniker, Candia, Bedford, Barrington, Hancock, New London and Littleton voted to bar casinos within their municipal boundaries. The city of Portsmouth moved to block gambling establishments within its city limits within three months of House Bill 737 being signed into law by the governor. 

Conway is expected to hold a similar vote on April 14.

This is separate from the option towns and cities have to opt out of Keno, a state-run lottery game.

State Rep. Bill Boyd, a Merrimack Republican who sponsored both the casino opt-out bill and the legislation allowing social districts in municipalities last year, said the two laws share the same philosophy: giving towns more control over what is allowed within their boundaries.

“I’m not surprised, but I’m very happy with the immediate engagement because it tells me that people are paying attention to local control and how they want their communities to look,” Boyd said of the number of towns that have already acted under the new law.

When gaming establishments were first legalized in New Hampshire, they were envisioned as small, locally-owned operations. The industry has since grown dramatically, with gaming halls now functioning as large-scale entertainment venues complete with restaurants and live shows. New Hampshire’s gaming industry is on track to become a $1.1 billion market within three years, according to experts. 

That rapid growth has left many communities uneasy about the demands large gambling venues could place on local infrastructure, including emergency services and traffic management, Manzelli said.

“New Hampshire doesn’t really have a great mechanism for making sure municipalities have a way of dealing with those impacts,” she said. “As the gaming industry evolved, the laws were written for your classic ‘Mom and Pop’ type bingo night, very small-scale establishments.” 

The law does include a grandfather clause protecting casinos that are already operating or were already in the pipeline at the time a community votes to opt out. 

In Littleton, plans for a casino proposed by an out-of-state operator have been in development for at least three years. In February, a casino developer using GSG Littleton Propco LLC purchased a property in town for a gaming establishment, according to state and town records. 

Since those plans predate the town’s opt-out vote, they would not be affected by it, Boyd said.

Under the law as written, it only prevents new casinos from being sited in communities that have passed such a vote.

“Even if towns like Littleton don’t want you, you’ve got 260-some odd cities and towns that exist in the state of New Hampshire. “I would think they (casinos) could find a community that would say, ‘we really want you to come to our community,’ and they will welcome them with open arms and work with their local system to make the facility happen,” Boyd said.