FEDERAL Group says it will only push on with plans for a $10 million upgrade of the Country Club in Launceston and a $70 million revamp of Hobart's Wrest Point if it gets an extension to its monopoly gaming license.
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In a move the Greens have described as ''corporate blackmail'', Federal Group chief executive Greg Farrell said on Tuesday the company required certainty.
''Any business and their financiers, in any sector, would need certainty around its operations in order to undertake developments of this scale,'' Mr Farrell said
''With a new licence, we would be able to lodge a development application very quickly,'' he said.
Federal Group has an exclusive licence to operate Tasmanian casinos and poker machines until 2023, under deeds signed with the state government in 1993 and 2003.
The company does not want to wait until then to determine its future.
The state government had been considering extending Federal's licence as a way of allowing MONA to operate a casino.
But MONA owner David Walsh withdrew his casino plans, saying he did not want to be associated with an extension of Federal's monopoly licence for poker machines.
Mr Walsh released plans over the weekend for a 160-room hotel at the museum site with room for a casino, and said he would ''build it anyway'' despite uncertainty as to whether he could obtain a license to operate the casino.
