Part of the Aquinnah Wampanoag reservation on Martha’sVineyard.

The Providence Journal / Andrew Dickerman

NEW BEDFORD — On a chilly Veterans Day, New Bedford’s legislative delegation gathered at Buttonwood Park to march in the annual parade along with Mayor Scott Lang and city councilors.

As members of the high school’s marching band and the Portuguese-American Band tuned up on the windy Sunday morning, the legislators talked about prospects that the city and the state will embrace casino gambling as a way to pay their bills.

“It’s a big, complex proposal,” said Rep. Antonio F. D. Cabral, before stepping down Union Street with the other marchers. “I’ve been in favor of expanded gaming in the past.”

New Bedford, a city trying to find a post-industrial future, put itself in line for a gambling venue this year when casino developers started placing bets on Massachusetts.

“I think New Bedford will get a tremendous benefit from legalized gambling in Massachusetts,” Lang told The Journal in an earlier interview.

Since the spring, when the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian tribe announced plans to build a casino about 20 miles north of New Bedford, in the town of Middleboro, about a half-dozen development groups have explored building a casino in the Whaling City. The developers are primarily focused on waterfront areas Lang and others in New Bedford say they want to see rejuvenated.

The city’s legislative delegation generally favors casino development in the state and South Coast region but expects any proposal to expand gambling to face a tough slog. Sen. Mark Montigny, vice chairman of the legislature’s economic-development committee, said there’s less than a 50-50 chance a casino bill would come to a vote next year.

“I think we have our work cut out for us,” said Rep. Robert M. Koczera, of the legislative debate.

The comments followed Governor Patrick’s proposal in September to license three commercial casinos to help the state pay for transportation projects, a $1-billion life-science initiative and property-tax relief.

Patrick is seeking to carve out three geographic areas that would each get one license: Southeastern Massachusetts, metropolitan Boston and western Massachusetts.

Three casinos would generate 20,000 permanent jobs, 30,000 temporary jobs related to construction, and $400 million in annual tax revenue, according to the Patrick administration. Bidding by casino developers for the three, 10-year licenses would produce a combined $600 million to $900 million for the state, the plan says.

The governor predicts that the casinos would help the state hold on to the $1.1 billion that Massachusetts residents gamble away in Rhode Island and Connecticut.

The proposal faces opposition in the Massachusetts legislature, where House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi is a key opponent. DiMasi questions the governor’s revenue estimates and whether it’s appropriate to bring to Massachusetts what he calls a “casino culture.” Montigny, of New Bedford, is a skeptic when it comes to casinos in Massachusetts. “The more time you put in and the more questions you ask, the more skeptical you become,” Montigny said in a phone interview after the parade. “The burden of proof is on the proponents to prove that Massachusetts should go down this road.”

While the Mashpee Wampanoags passed over New Bedford in favor of Middleboro, another band of Wampanoags, the Aquinnah tribe, considers the city a potential casino site. The Aquinnah, of Martha’s Vineyard, said last month that they had joined with an upstate New York tribe to build a gambling resort in Massachusetts.

“All things being equal, we’d like to have a casino in Southeastern Massachusetts,” said James McManus, an Aquinnah spokesman. “The Aquinnah have been interested in New Bedford for a long time.”

The Aquinnah gained federal recognition in 1987, before the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which gives Native Americans the right to operate casinos. The tribe tried to build a casino in New Bedford in the mid-1990s, but ultimately scrapped plans to build a $175-million casino and entertainment complex on a 280-acre golf course near Routes 195 and 140.

In January 1997, fearing a hostile state legislature would not allow the city to sell the golf course, the Wampanoags abandoned the site. A year later, the tribe gave up on a plan to build a casino in Fall River.

The Aquinnah and the Seneca Nation, which runs two casinos of its own and has a third under construction, said they would compete for one of the three commercial casino licenses Patrick wants to sell.

The Aquinnah tribe said it would bid on a commercial license, but would pursue a tribal casino if it doesn’t win one of the state permits, according to McManus.

“The intention is to pursue a license under the state process,” he said, but the tribe is “keeping its options open.”

The Aquinnah announcement adds another potential competitor for a Southeastern Massachusetts casino.

The Mashpee tribe was the first to make a move, announcing in the spring its intention to pursue federal permission to convert land in Middleboro to an autonomous reservation. The tribe and its backers said they were willing to spend $1 billion to open a casino there by 2010, with slot machines, table games, a 1,500-room hotel, golf courses and other attractions.

Under federal law, a tribe can open a casino if such gambling is legal in the rest of its state. A tribe needs no approval to open a facility with bingo-style slots, which look similar to regular slots.

Patrick has urged the Mashpee Wampanoags to compete for a state casino license, which would make their resort subject to state oversight and taxes. His proposal would give preference to a Massachusetts Indian tribe for one of the gambling licenses.

While the Mashpee have made Middleboro their first priority, New Bedford has drawn their interest as well.

Prospective casino developers are aware of New Bedford’s willingness to host a casino and at least a half-dozen have come to “kick the tires” and meet with officials, Lang told The Journal last month. The maneuvering opens the prospect of there being two casinos in Southeastern Massachusetts, one with a state license and the other opened under federal authority.

One development group, Northeast Gaming, has secured land in the city.

“The governor’s pronouncement clearly puts New Bedford, which some had felt was behind the curve, right up there in front of the curve,” Leon Dragone, a Northeast partner, said this year.

Northeast holds options on more than 35 acres in the city’s Hicks-Logan neighborhood, which is along the New Bedford waterfront, just south of Route 195. The group also has an agreement with Pennsylvania Real Estate Trust, the company that owns the Dartmouth Mall, to develop the site.

Dragone’s company has also proposed a casino in Palmer, where it owns 150 acres off the Massachusetts Turnpike. Northeast has entered into an agreement with the Mohegan tribe, of Connecticut, to develop a casino there. (The Aquinnah have also talked about joining in the western Massachusetts site, the two parties acknowledge.)

Dragone’s partner in Northeast is Steven Norton, a former president and chief operating officer of the Sands Hotel & Casino, in Las Vegas.

Sands Bethworks Gaming LLC, a subsidiary of Las Vegas Sands Corp., and Penn National Gaming Inc. are among the groups interested in the city, according to Matthew A. Morrissey, executive director of the New Bedford Economic Development Council.

Penn National runs a dozen casinos, seven race tracks, four slot parlors and five off-track betting parlors around the United States.

In addition to the Hicks-Logan industrial area, the Whaling City Country Club, a waterfront oil terminal and other industrial land have been mentioned by city officials and others as potential casino locations.

Unemployment in New Bedford stood at 5.8 percent in August, according to figures provided by the New Bedford Workforce Investment Board. That’s a drop from the 6.3 percent recorded in the same month last year. Statewide, unemployment stood at 4.5 percent in August, dropping from 4.9 percent in the same month last year.

New Bedford’s per capita income of $15,602 was the lowest of the Bay State’s South Coast communities, according to the 2000 U.S. Census. That was about two-thirds of the $25,952 level for Massachusetts as a whole that year. Per capita income for Massachusetts last year was $43,501, placing it third in the country.

Wage rates for blue-collar workers are 10 to 25 percent below Greater Boston, according to the city’s own economic data. White-collar rates are 25 to 40 percent below Greater Boston.

Thirty-seven percent of the people living in and around New Bedford have a vocational education, while a third hold an associate’s degree or higher.

While New Bedford is the top U.S. port by the value of its catch, New England’s fishing industry as a whole is shrinking under constant regulatory and economic pressures.

Lang said his city was a viable casino location, with much of the infrastructure and amenities needed already in place. The city sports an 18-hole public golf course, a performance theater, a waterfront location, and an airport that could be a boon to a resort-style casino, he said.

A New Bedford casino would be about 30 miles from the Newport Grand slot parlor and about 35 miles from the Twin River parlor.

Lang and city planners envision a new economic era for the city, with New Bedford Harbor and the Achushnet River serving as draws for tourists and the wellspring of service-oriented jobs.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is in the fourth year of its efforts to clean up the harbor, fouled by years of industrial waste.

The city is putting $40 million into a plan to develop the banks of the river, part of the inlet that forms New Bedford Harbor.

The plan includes hosting rowers on the mile-and-half stretch of river north of the Coggshall Bridge. Construction of a $1.5-million boathouse is expected to start in the spring.

“The position of the Harbor Development Commission is consistent with the mayor,” said Kristin Decas, executive director of the New Bedford Harbor DevelopmentCommission. “[A casino] has got to make sense.”

Created by the state legislature 50 years ago, the city commission has jurisdiction over all New Bedford waters and the city’s coastline on the harbor and river. The commission also manages the city’s wharves and a marina. New Bedford’s mayor serves as the commission’s chairman, and the city council approves its financing plans.

Any casino has to be easy for tourists to reach, said Rep. Stephen R. Canessa, to help Massachusetts make money from out-of-staters. He said Patrick should consider a casino stop in his plan to bring commuter rail service to New Bedford, which Canessa represents.

In an April letter to the governor, Canessa and Sen. Joan M. Menard, who represents Fall River, wrote: “We envision a resort-style, expanded gaming facility in Southeastern Massachusetts that is accessible by commuter rail and public transportation.

A proposed MBTA line would run along the Hicks-Logan site.

“[Hicks-Logan] is a nice site because it’s right off the highway,” Decas noted.

Cabral, like other state representatives, said the state had to ensure that any casino didn’t become “an island” with no spin-off development or economic benefits.

He said he was also worried about whether a casino would cut into state lottery revenues, which amounted to nearly $4.5 billion in fiscal 2007, according to the Massachusetts State Lottery Commission. The state returned $27.5 million in lottery revenues to New Bedford during the fiscal year.

“We’ve really got to protect local aid,” Cabral said.

On Veterans Day along the parade route, people sounded unsure about a casino’s impact on the city.

Middle-aged Dermot Duggan, of New Bedford, said, “I’m not that crazy about gambling as an institution. I have mixed feelings.”

But Duggan said, “I don’t think it’s up to the people of New Bedford, I think it’s up to the people north of Brockton,” a reference to Governor Patrick and the state legislature.

Steven Smith, a Vietnam veteran from Taunton, said he was all for a casino. If New Bedford doesn’t want it, he said, “put it in my backyard.”

Still, he said, “I think New Bedford will get it; there’s nothing here.”

A recent idea floated by the governor to require that casinos be approved in a local referendum wouldn’t seem to be a stumbling block for a casino proposal in the Whaling City, where residents have endorsed gambling plans twice in referendums.

“My gut feeling is it would pass. . . . We need jobs,” Mayor Lang said.

pgrimald@projo.com