Plainville, Mass. — Banners along the driveway leading to Plainridge Park’s front door promise “Wicked Good Times” and “Wicked Big Wins,” and who’s to say Massachusetts’ first casino has done anything but deliver since it opened nearly three months ago.

By all accounts, it’s a hit.

“In here, you can forget you’re in Plainville,” Peter Mercier, assistant manager at Flutie’s Sports Pub, one of the casino’s dining options, said one day last week. “They’re still working out some kinks, but overall it’s been a great success. I’ve heard a lot of compliments about how clean it is. I actually think the nonsmoking thing could turn out to be a positive.”

Outside, where patrons were waiting for valets to bring their cars, Jack Toney, a retired firefighter for the City of Worcester, sat on a bench and smoked a cigarette.

“It’s pretty nice — nice and clean,” said Toney, a first-time visitor.

In July, its first full month of operation, Plainridge Park cleaned up in more ways than one, generating more than $18.1 million in gaming revenue at its 1,250 slot machines and video table games, according to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission.

The $250 million facility, which employs 600 and includes the state’s only live harness-racing track, is projected to generate $200 million in gaming revenue in its first year, which would translate into $98 million in payments to the state.

The commission has issued licenses for an $800 million resort casino in Springfield and a $1.7 billion colossus in Everett, outside Boston, and is considering whether to grant a third one for southeastern Massachusetts, a region in which the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe hopes to gain federal approval of a casino project.

But until at least 2018, Plainridge Park is the Bay State’s one and only casino.

No table games

Lance George, whom Penn National Gaming, the Plainridge owners, installed as the new casino’s general manager in May, said the “preponderance” of Plainridge customers comes from three areas.

Most are from southeastern Massachusetts while the second-biggest block are Rhode Islanders, he said.

A distant third are customers from New Hampshire and Connecticut, where Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun don't expect to feel much impact from Plainridge.

Plainridge’s closest competition, Twin River Casino, is just 18 miles away in Lincoln, R.I. From less than a mile away, traveling south on Route 1, Twin River fires a billboard salvo.

“LIVE TABLE GAMES/GIVE YOU THE BEST/CHANCE TO WIN … TWIN RIVER CASINO,” shouts the advertisement. Plainridge has no live table games — no dice, no roulette wheels, no card games.

What Plainridge has, Michele Collins, the casino’s vice president of marketing said, is an affiliation with more than two dozen other Penn National properties across the country, including two in Las Vegas.

Customers who earn Marquee Rewards points playing Plainridge slots can redeem them at any other Penn National facility.

George said Plainridge’s live harness racing also is an advantage, expanding the facility's customer base. He also claimed the casino’s up-to-date mix of slot machines — 1,100 of them are new — put it ahead of the competition.

As with many casinos, particularly slots-only facilities, Plainridge Park appeals to an older crowd.

“From Day One, it was clear this was a mature market, which is kind of a double-edged sword,” George said. “Our customers have played at Twin River, Foxwoods, Mohegan Sun. They know the lingo. They’re savvy, and they have a level of expectation regarding service.”

Impact at Twin River

Twin River has been preparing for Massachusetts to crash New England's gaming party for years, introducing table games for the first time in mid-2013 and soon adding more.

It’s in the process of adding still more, including its first poker tables, on a second, nonsmoking floor that’s also been upgraded with new dining and entertainment options.

After removing 274 slots to accommodate the table games, the casino will still offer more than 4,225 slots.

“We’re spending a lot of time promoting the various amenities we’ve added — live tables, restaurants, entertainment,” said John Taylor, the Twin River chairman. “We are calling out the fact that we have a lot of amenities.”

Twin River also has acquired Newport Grand, Rhode Island’s only other casino, a slots-only facility, and plans to shut it down in favor of relocating in Tiverton, a town that borders Fall River, Mass.

The move would have to be approved in referendum votes in Tiverton and statewide.

The Tiverton Town Council would have to pass a resolution approving a casino project before the referendum questions could be placed on November 2016 ballots.

Twin River officials are meeting with Tiverton residents to determine what they’d like to see in a casino.

Taylor said it’s too soon to assess Plainridge Park’s effect on Twin River’s business.

“Clearly, there has been an impact, but it hasn’t been as significant as we thought it would be,” he said. “We thought that at the end of the first year (of Plainridge’s operation), the impact would be about 12 percent. In July, it was about 6 percent, and I’m not sure all of that was Plainridge. Foxwoods has been spending a lot on free (slots) play.”

In the not-so-distant future, Taylor, like Plainridge’s George, will have more competition to contend with.

While the Springfield resort casino and a third Connecticut casino pursued by that state's casino-owning tribes aren’t part of their immediate world, the Everett casino and a southeastern Massachusetts casino in either Taunton or Brockton, or both, could shakes things up considerably.

“In our planning, we assumed the worst — that there would be two resort casinos in southeastern Massachusetts,” Taylor said. “We’re not going to be proposing some $500 million or $600 million destination casino. We don’t believe that works. We believe in our convenience casino model.”

b.hallenbeck@theday.com

Twitter: @bjhallenbeck