Lawmakers are about to propose two casino-expansion bills, one of which would open the application process to operators willing to compete for a commercial gaming license, according to the co-chairman of the General Assembly’s Public Safety and Security Committee, the panel that oversees gaming in the state.

The other bill would grant the casino-owning Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes the exclusive right to jointly pursue a third Connecticut casino, Rep. Joe Verrengia, D-West Hartford, said Monday in a phone interview.

Both bills could become available as soon as Tuesday, Verrengia said, in which case a public hearing could be scheduled for next week.

Earlier Monday, the tribes announced that they’ve picked East Windsor to host the third casino they hope to build as a hedge against MGM Springfield, the $950 million Massachusetts project that threatens jobs and revenue generated by Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun.

The East Windsor site, now occupied by a vacant Showcase Cinemas building, is right off Exit 45 of Interstate 91 and plainly visible from the highway.

“I’m not so sure a bill would pass out of committee that would deal exclusively with the tribes,” Verrengia said. “I don’t even know if there’s enough support for a third casino at all.”

At an informational meeting last week, committee members raised questions about the tribes’ plan to develop a $300 million “satellite” casino, a project the tribes believe they can pursue through an amendment to their existing gaming agreements with the state. Under those agreements, or compacts, the tribes pay 25 percent of their casinos’ slot-machine revenues to the state in exchange for the exclusive right to operate casinos in Connecticut.

Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, located on the tribes’ respective reservations in southeastern Connecticut, are tribal casinos and are subject to federal regulation as well as the terms of the compacts. The proposed third casino — a commercial rather than tribal venture — would be built on nontribal land.

Allowing another operator to open a commercial casino in the state would break the compacts, causing the tribes to cease making slots payments to the state. Those payments are expected to total between $200 million and $250 million this year.

Some believe it’s unclear whether the tribal partnership that would develop the third casino — MMCT, which stands for Mashantucket, Mohegan, Connecticut — constitutes a separate entity.

MGM Resorts International, the operator behind the Springfield, Mass., casino, has urged the state to open up the casino-expansion process.

“Legalities surrounding the potential risk to the revenue we get now could be a game-changer for legislators who are on the fence about casinos to begin with,” Verrengia said. “Plus, there’s another piece of this equation — the public. We’ve got to gauge public support. We’ve got to have an opportunity to listen to the public.”

He said there are “still many unanswered questions” and that at the end of the committee’s deliberations it could decide to vote out one or both bills — or neither of them.

Sen. Tim Larson, D-East Hartford, another co-chairman of the Public Safety and Security Committee, hailed the tribes’ selection of East Windsor as a potential casino site. Larson’s district includes East Windsor.

“I think this is great news for the town of East Windsor and the state as a whole,” he said in a statement. “… I’ve spoken with a lot of people who have had differing opinions on the third casino, and I believe the majority now see this as a real opportunity, and it seems very promising.”

Tribal officials delivered word of their site selection to the first selectmen of East Windsor and Windsor Locks — the last two towns in the running — shortly before releasing it to the media around noon.

“It was welcome news,” Robert Maynard, the East Windsor first selectman, said. “They said they wanted to come to a community that was excited about them, and we certainly are. They’re good people. They’re open and honest. I think it’s a good deal for both parties.”

On Saturday, the East Windsor Board of Selectman unanimously approved a development agreement with MMCT. The MMCT board approved the agreement Monday.

Meanwhile, the Windsor Locks Board of Selectmen had scheduled a special meeting for Tuesday to consider a development agreement between Windsor Locks and the tribes. As late as Monday afternoon, agenda items for that meeting, posted on the town’s website, included an executive session for discussion of “ongoing casino negotiations” and a potential vote on the casino development agreement and the setting of dates for a town meeting and a referendum.

The Windsor Locks site the tribes rejected is a former tobacco field that mall developers had once eyed.

“I got the call about 11:30 (Monday morning),” Chris Kervick, the Windsor Locks first selectman, said. “The most disappointing thing about it was the reason they gave me. They said they were concerned about the number of municipal officials in town that had expressed opposition.”

Kervick said the chairman of the town’s Board of Finance, who also chairs the local Republican Town Committee, had “thrown cold water” on the idea of hosting a casino during community meetings.

“It sounded like they might have been scared off by the partisanship,” Kervick, a Democrat, said of the tribes. “The way I looked at it was that my job was to try to negotiate the best deal available for the town and let the citizens decide in a referendum.”

East Windsor is not putting its agreement with the tribes to a referendum.

The deal calls for the tribes to pay the town $3 million up front and $3 million a year thereafter in addition to regular tax payments, which are expected to total about $5.5 million a year.

Kervick said Windsor Locks’ proposal called for the tribes to pay the town 2.75 percent of the casino’s gross gaming revenues, which, he said, the tribe projects will be $300 million a year. That would have meant an annual payment to the town of $8.25 million.

The tribes held community meetings in East Windsor and Windsor Locks in late January, drawing big crowds in both towns as they touted the benefits of hosting a casino. One of those benefits, they said, was the boost a casino gives local vendors who supply it.

Gary Paul, owner of Paul’s TV in Groton, spoke on behalf of the tribes at those meetings and appears in a video on MMCT’s website, ctjobsmatter.com. He recently announced he will close Paul’s TV because of declining business.

“The casinos were one of the reasons I was able to sustain it as long as I did,” Paul said Monday. “They were fully aware I was closing a week ago and have been helping me liquidate, taking some of my inventory.”

He said he hadn’t decided to close when he appeared at the community meetings.

“I hadn’t got my last year’s numbers at that time. I hadn’t made the decision to close,” Paul said.

“We hope we get the chance to work with him again,” a spokesman for MMCT said.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com