A Windsor Locks tobacco field could be the leading contender for the site of the third Connecticut casino the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes are pursuing.

“In my opinion, it’s the frontrunner,” Chris Kervick, the Windsor Locks first selectman, said Thursday night. “Based on my conversations with the tribes, that’s where they want to put it.”

Andrew Doba, a spokesman for the tribes’ third-casino effort, MMCT Venture, declined to comment on Kervick’s assertion.

Meanwhile, with the tribes picking up the pace, state Sen. Cathy Osten, R-Sprague, whose district includes their respective casinos, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, submitted a “placeholder” bill Thursday that guarantees another round of legislative debate on the matter.

Osten called on the General Assembly to amend state law “to authorize the construction and operation of a casino facility in north central Connecticut and provide for the regulation of casino gaming.” The bill was referred to the legislature’s Public Safety and Security Committee.

On Thursday afternoon, MMCT Venture announced that Bradley International Airport isn’t the only Windsor Locks location being considered for the third Connecticut casino. They said a tobacco field recently eyed as a site for a shopping mall also is a possibility.

MMCT Venture identified the site in announcing it has scheduled a second public meeting on the third-casino plan.

The tribes will hold a “community conversation” at 7 p.m. Jan. 26 in the auditorium of Windsor Locks High School. They had announced earlier this week that they planned to hold a similar session at 7 p.m. Jan. 24 in the auditorium of East Windsor Middle School.

A former Showcase Cinemas building on Interstate 91 in East Windsor also is a potential casino site.

Kervick said that if the tribes settle on a casino site in his town, the proposal would be put to a referendum vote. He said that while Bradley airport still is under consideration, no specific location there has been identified.

The 76-acre tobacco field, on the other hand, is “a prime location” and “easily developable,” he said. "It's two minutes from the airport."

Known as the Thrall Tobacco Farm, it’s located on Old County Road, “optimally situated on Route 20 by the Interstate 91 interchange,” according to an MMCT news release. It previously was considered as a location for an outlet mall the Simon Property Group intended to build.

Windsor Locks officials learned early last year that Simon was suspending its plan to develop the property.

The third Connecticut casino is seen as a hedge against the impact of MGM Springfield, the $950 million resort being built in western Massachusetts just a few miles from the Connecticut border.

Osten’s bill’s stated purpose is “to protect Connecticut jobs that provide a good living to working families and to preserve and create critically important state tax revenue ...”

Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun pay 25 percent of their slot-machine winnings to the state, which amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

“We sincerely appreciate Senator Osten’s commitment to this project and look forward to working with her and others in the General Assembly in the weeks ahead,” Doba, the MMCT spokesman, said. “She understands how vital these jobs are to the state’s economy.”

Osten said the submission of her bill would enable the Public Safety and Security Committee to conduct a public hearing on the relevant “subject matter” as more specific language is being drafted. Ultimately, the bill is expected to address legal questions surrounding the authorization of commercial gaming in the state and how it would affect the state’s gaming agreements with the Mashantuckets and the Mohegans.

The state’s existing casinos are considered tribal rather than commercial and are subject to federal regulation.

MGM Resorts International, which is building the Springfield, Mass., casino, filed a federal lawsuit over the 2015 Connecticut law that enabled the tribes to form a joint venture to solicit casino site proposals from municipalities. MGM appealed a District Court judge's dismissal of the suit, and the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in late November. A decision is pending.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com