East Windsor fell Wednesday from the ranks of municipalities that could host a third Connecticut casino.

East Hartford, Hartford and Windsor Locks remain in the running.

Chairmen of the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes announced the winnowing in a statement issued Wednesday afternoon.

“We’ve spent the last several months going through this process, trying to figure out the best way to preserve Connecticut jobs and revenue,” said Kevin Brown, the Mohegan chairman. “East Windsor’s clear desire to host this facility made this decision really difficult. However, the fact that one site was removed by the developer and others were not submitted by the property owner made pursuing a facility there extremely challenging.”

The Mashantuckets and the Mohegans, respective owners of Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun, are jointly pursuing a Hartford-area casino to compete against MGM Springfield, a $950 million resort casino under construction a few miles from Connecticut’s northern border.

East Windsor’s fate may have been sealed when Centerplan Companies of Middletown, a developer that held options on a Route 5 site off Exit 44 of Interstate 91 allowed those options to lapse. Although the town had offered an alternative site encompassing a former Showcase Cinemas building and a former Walmart, the owner of those properties never came to terms with the tribes.

“We look forward to beginning the next phase of discussion with East Hartford, Hartford and Windsor Locks,” Rodney Butler, the Mashantucket chairman, said.

Representatives of both tribes traveled Wednesday to East Windsor to deliver the news before it was released to the media, said Robert Maynard, the East Windsor first selectman.

“It was very gracious of them to do that,” he said.

Had East Windsor been the tribes’ choice, the town would have held a referendum on hosting a casino. Maynard said there was no clear indication of how the referendum likely would have gone.

“It (a casino) would have been an economic boost, but it also would have changed the character of the town — I’m not sure if for the better or the worse,” Maynard said.

In Windsor Locks, both the Connecticut Airport Authority, which operates Bradley International Airport, and Sportech Venues, which operates the Bradley Teletheater, an off-track-betting facility, have proposed hosting a casino. East Hartford’s proposal involves a partnership’s plan to convert a Showcase Cinemas building on Interstate 84, while Hartford’s involves an area near the Xfinity Theatre in the city’s North Meadows section.

In Massachusetts, the Springfield City Council this week approved design changes for the MGM Springfield project, including the elimination of a 25-story hotel tower, while Wynn Resorts’ plan for a $1.7 billion casino in Everett has been slowed by a legal challenge by the nearby city of Somerville.

The MGM and Wynn casinos are to open in late 2018.