Since the onset of last decade’s “retail apocalypse,” New Hampshire shopping mall owners have recruited a number of new non-retail tenants to fill empty spaces – fitness centers, healthcare clinics, restaurants and other service-industry businesses.

Some mall owners have taken even more radical steps to address their brick-and-mortar vacancy woes: replacing empty buildings with multifamily housing, offices, restaurants, entertainment venues and other amenities as part of overall mix-used redevelopment projects.

Despite the jarring changes, mall owners have largely succeeded in refilling or replacing many, though not all, of the vacant spaces caused by the rise of e-commerce over recent decades.

But finding tenants to fill the last remaining big-box spaces previously hosting larger retail tenants, such as Sears, Toys R Us or Bed Bath and Beyond, has proven more vexing.

For two malls, though, an unlikely new type of tenant has stepped into those box-shaped voids: “charitable casinos,” the once-mom-and-pop gaming operations that are now increasingly controlled by large, out-of-state gambling companies.

Big Investors Replace Dead Anchors

In Nashua, the former Sears space at the Pheasant Lane Mall is now undergoing a major redevelopment into “The Nash,” which, with its planned 60 gaming tables and 1,200 slot machine-like “Historical Horse Racing” (HHR) stations, will become the state’s largest gambling venue once it opens, probably early next year.

The investors – Las Vegas-based ECL Entertainment and the Toronto-based private equity firm Clairvest – are reportedly spending $250 million on the 130,000-square-foot Nash project.

Meanwhile, powerhouse local developers Joe Faro, of Tuscan Brands and Tuscan Village fame, and Sal Lupoli, the founder of the Sal’s Pizza chain and the soon-to-be co-redeveloper of the old Hampton Beach Casino, have proposed replacing the former Lord & Taylor space at the Mall at Rockingham Park in Salem with “Live!”

The latter duo have proposed that the 120,000-square-foot casino include 40 tables, 900 so-called HHR machines, and a number of dining and entertainment venues.

For the project, Faro and Lupoli have teamed up with the Cordish Co., builder of casinos in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Tampa, according to filings with the town of Salem.

Marc Falcone, a principal at ECL, made clear his company’s prior success operating the River Casino and Sports Bar and the Lucky Moose Casino and Tavern, both in Nashua, encouraged it to expand in the Granite State.

“New Hampshire is an excellent market for gaming,” said Falcone in an email. “In The Nash, we saw an opportunity to create a premier charitable gaming venue that is smaller than some of the larger casinos in Massachusetts, but larger than the typical gaming venue in New Hampshire.”

Public Wants More from Malls

Commercial real estate experts say casinos moving into vacant spaces at malls simply makes sense.

“It fits the trend of bringing in new types of tenants,” said Chris Norwood, president of NAI Norwood Group in Bedford. “Malls are no longer about retail shopping for goods. They’re now about services and entertainment. Casinos fall into the entertainment/services trend. They bring in pedestrian and car traffic.”

Andrew Robbins, a senior associate at Colliers, agrees that attracting casinos to malls, whether they’re enclosed malls or large strip malls, simply makes sense.

“Consumer preferences have shifted,” he said. “Consumers now want an ‘experience’ when they go out. Developers have embraced that shift. Shopping [malls] now include entertainment, fitness centers, restaurants, breweries. It’s not just retail. Casinos are just good way to get foot traffic into facilities.”

But some are beginning to wonder if gaming facilities are expanding too fast in New Hampshire.

In 2006, the state approved creation of so-called “charitable casinos,” originally envisioned as modest steps up from traditional church casinos and bingo operations. Over the years, casino revenues have been split three ways: 35 percent to charities, 10 percent to the state and 55 percent to operators.

But earlier this decade, the state expanded gaming options at casinos to include Historical Horse Racing machines, which look and operate much like slot machines, but whose winners are based on previously-run horse races.

And the revenue split from HHR machines differs from the old gaming-tables split – with 75 percent of revenues going to casinos and with the rest distributed to charities and the state.

This more lucrative revenue split has attracted major out-of-state gaming companies, such as Churchill Downs, owner of the Chasers Poker Room in Salem, and Delaware North, owner of the Boston Bruins and TD North Garden in Boston and the Gate City Casino (formerly known as the Boston Billiards Club & Casino) in Nashua.

Explosion Draws Critics

There are currently 12 operating “charitable casinos” in the state, and some are clearly concerned about the spread of larger casinos, and particularly their HHR machines, across the state.

Lawmakers just recently passed legislation that would allow only a handful of additional HHR licenses in the state.

Meanwhile, a special state commission was recently established to study the future of gaming in New Hampshire – and to make possible recommendations.

Pat Abrami, chair of the commission and a former state representative, said his group is planning to issue its formal recommendations on Nov. 1, and they will likely include proposed changes to current casino revenue splits. He did not elaborate.

Abrami, who is currently running for state senator in the Seacoast’s District 24, said he and others are concerned about the recent expansion of gaming in New Hampshire and the growing dominance by major out-of-state players.

“This industry has evolved quickly,” he said. “Historical Horse Racing has changed the ballgame. The state didn’t anticipate what would happen [after the introduction of HHR]. It’s now a moving target. We’re trying to put guard rails around it.”

A consulting report commissioned by Abrami’s group recently estimated that the state’s gaming market has room to grow and could potentially hit $1.1 billion in overall revenue. The report by Spectrum Gaming Group basically concluded that the state’s casinos, at this time, don’t need major reforms.

Any Room for More?

Jay Zagorsky, a professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, said he hasn’t studied the New Hampshire gaming market closely – nor has he read Spectrum’s report.

But he questioned how much larger the industry can get in New Hampshire, noting how the state is surrounded by larger casinos now operating, or planning to operate, in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York.

And all casinos, no matter where they’re located, are threatened by the proliferation of online sports betting across the nation, he noted.

“New Hampshire has some serious competition,” Zagorsky said. “This is a problem for smaller casinos in New Hampshire.”

To be clear: Not all shopping malls are scrambling to fill vacant spaces with gaming operations.

The Concord Planning Board, for instance, recently approved the demolition of much of the old Steeplegate Mall, owned by Onyx Partners Ltd., which is planning a mixed-use development that includes three new multifamily buildings and six retail buildings.

There’s been no published mention of a new casino at Steeplegate, with the project seemingly anchored by those new apartments and a large “warehouse retail” building indicated on plans filed with Concord officials.

But it’s clear some operators see jackpots, or at least dollar signs, in the state’s mall properties, not all of which have settled futures.

“As one of the largest operators of Historical Horse Racing machines in the country, we are [in] a unique position to tap into that emergent market,” said ECL’s Falcone. “Nashua is a proven market for gaming and its location is outstanding. We expect The Nash to be successful.”