With MGM Springfield just days away from its one-year anniversary, president Michael Mathis believes the $960 million resort casino has answered the gloom and doom predictions of the “naysayers.”

While revenues for the first year are significantly below its own predictions, Mathis said Monday that the casino is doing fine, and he is bullish about the coming year.

“I think there were a lot of naysayers that first said we would never build this; then they said people wouldn’t come because it’s Springfield,” Mathis said during a meeting with reporters “And a year later, 6 million visitors later, we’re knocking the cover off the ball on many, many facets of it.”