Hartford — State legislative leaders said Wednesday they expect to deal this session with a bill authorizing a third casino in the state, though the details of such legislation remain a mystery.

“I do expect a bill to be proposed,” state Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, said.

Osten, whose district includes Connecticut’s existing casinos, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, said she believes legal issues surrounding the legalization of commercial gaming in the state will be resolved.

“I would hope so,” state Rep. Kevin Ryan, D-Montville, said when asked if he thought a third-casino bill would surface. “Now that Dargan’s gone, I don’t know ...”

Ryan was referring to state Rep. Stephen Dargan, the West Haven Democrat and longtime co-chairman of the legislature’s Public Safety and Security Committee, who resigned his seat this week to accept a gubernatorial appointment to the Board of Pardons and Paroles.

Bills related to casinos and gambling typically have originated in the public safety committee.

Dargan has been a reliable supporter of gaming legislation, including the 2015 measure that authorized the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes — owners, respectively, of Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun — to jointly solicit casino site proposals from Hartford-area municipalities.

A third Connecticut casino, the thinking goes, would enable the tribes to weather the impact of MGM Springfield, a $950 million resort casino being built in Massachusetts.

“Personally, I have concerns about it,” House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby, said of a third casino. “When we passed the legislation two years ago, it was to give towns some control over it. We have to consider it on a case-by-case basis.”

The Mashantuckets and the Mohegans have been reviewing potential casino sites in five municipalities that responded to their requests for proposals: East Hartford, East Windsor, Hartford, South Windsor and Windsor Locks.

"Hopefully, we’ll have some news shortly,” Chuck Bunnell, chief of staff for the Mohegans, said this week. “There have been a great deal of man-hours put into this to get us where we are today. You will start seeing the results ...”

House Majority Leader Matthew Ritter, D-Hartford, said the legal questions raised by state Attorney General George Jepsen still have to be addressed. Jepsen alerted lawmakers to the possibility that the authorization of commercial gaming could jeopardize the state's gaming agreements with the casino-owning tribes.

“I don’t have a fundamental disagreement — we have casinos now, right?” Ritter said. “But we have to figure out these issues.”

Rep. Kathleen McCarty, D-Waterford, whose district is home to hundreds of casino workers, said she would support a third-casino bill that addresses the legal questions raised by the attorney general and provides for problem-gambling programs.

The 2015 casino bill requires the casino-owning tribes to provide legislative leaders with monthly reports on the progress of their third-casino efforts. Rodney Butler, the Mashantucket tribal chairman, and Kevin Brown, his Mohegan counterpart, filed their December report Friday.

“We are eager to work with you in the upcoming legislative session on a bill that will protect Connecticut jobs and critically important tax revenue,” they wrote. “Over the last two decades, our two tribes have contributed more than $7 billion to the state’s general fund, money that’s gone to improving public education and a host of other good causes. We’ve been good corporate citizens and good neighbors. And we want to make sure that we can continue to serve the state in this role.”

Butler and Brown warned that MGM Springfield could cost the state thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in gaming revenue.

“Doing nothing is unacceptable,” they wrote.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com