Hartford — Southeastern Connecticut’s casinos stand to shed more jobs regardless of whether their Indian owners win the right to defend themselves from out-of-state competition by opening smaller versions of Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun in strategic locations.

“But it will be a lot more if we do nothing,” Bobby Soper, the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority president, said Monday following a MetroHartford Alliance-sponsored discussion of Connecticut’s gaming industry.

Soper said data on the number of southeastern Connecticut jobs at stake is still being developed.

In the “do-nothing” scenario, a resort casino under construction in Springfield, Mass., another licensed near Boston and two looming in eastern New York state would divert an estimated $703 million in gaming and nongaming revenues from Connecticut to Massachusetts by 2019, according to researchers retained by the tribe. About 9,300 Connecticut jobs would be lost, including nearly 6,000 at Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun.

A satellite casino north of Hartford would stem the exodus of Connecticut gamblers to Massachusetts — and also, to a lesser degree, to the southeastern Connecticut casinos, Soper acknowledged. But, he added, “We would rather be our own competitor.”

MGM executives have indicated that they expect to draw more customers from Connecticut than from Massachusetts, Soper noted.

Kevin Brown, the Mohegan tribal chairman, told Hartford-area business leaders gathered at the Connecticut Convention Center that the effort to protect Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun wasn’t just about southeastern Connecticut. He said the Connecticut residents who work at the casinos and the vendors that service them hail from all over the state.

“We don’t want to do any more downsizing,” he said.

Felix Rappaport, Foxwoods’ president and chief executive officer, said the Mashantucket Pequot-owned casino does business with more than 650 Connecticut vendors, infusing the state’s economy with $120 million annually. Foxwoods’ employees, he said, come from 134 of Connecticut’s 169 municipalities.

Greater Hartford would feel the impact of the Springfield casino, said Rodney Butler, the Mashantucket chairman. Any reduction in the Connecticut casinos’ slot-machine revenues results in a reduction in the state’s 25 percent share of those revenues, a portion of which is doled out to towns and cities.

Brown stressed the urgency of the situation.

“We are not talking about the future,” he said. “This is here and now. … Should we be looking at other industries? Yes. This discussion doesn’t exclude that discussion.”

The bill authorizing the tribes to operate up to three satellite casinos has cleared two legislative panels and may face a vote by another, the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, before the Senate acts on it. As written, it would require a town’s legislative body to approve a casino project in that town.

Officials in East Hartford, East Windsor and other towns have shown interest in hosting a casino. Tony Ravosa, a Glastonbury businessman who put together a plan to develop a casino at a former Showcase Cinemas site near Rentschler Field in East Hartford, said East Hartford’s mayor met last week with tribal officials to discuss the proposal.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com

Twitter: @bjhallenbeck