Poll results released over the weekend show Bridgeport residents overwhelmingly support MGM Resorts International’s proposed development of a $675 million resort casino on the city’s waterfront.

The poll, commissioned by MGM Resorts, found that nearly three-quarters of Bridgeport residents favor the plan, including 59 percent who strongly favor it and another 16 percent who are “not so strongly” behind it.

Eighteen percent of the respondents opposed the casino, including 13 percent who were “strongly opposed.”

MGM Resorts attributed the support to factors that more than 70 percent of residents view as “very important,” according to the survey: the creation of thousands of jobs, annual payments of $8 million to Bridgeport and $4.5 million to neighboring communities and annual payments to the state.

“The overwhelming support is a clear signal to state policy makers that Connecticut needs to update its antiquated gaming policy to take advantage of the job-creating and economy-expanding opportunity that is MGM Bridgeport,” Uri Clinton, MGM Resorts senior vice president and legal counsel, said in a statement.

MGM’s proposal would require legislative approval that would affect the state’s exclusive gaming agreements with the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes, respective owners of Connecticut's two existing casinos. The tribes have been authorized to build a third Connecticut casino in East Windsor, where it will directly compete with a nearly $1 billion resort casino MGM Resorts is building in Springfield, Mass.

— Brian Hallenbeck