Boston Mayor Marty Walsh won a skirmish on Thursday in the fight to gain host community status for the two proposed eastern Massachusetts casinos, but does he really want to win the war?

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission pushed back the timetable for awarding the eastern Massachusetts casino license from June to at least August to give Walsh enough time to make his case that Boston should be designated a host community for both applicants, Mohegan Sun in Revere and Wynn Resorts in Everett.

Walsh has portrayed his last-minute push as a quest for fairness. The proposed Mohegan Sun and Wynn casinos are located steps away from Boston’s borders and rely heavily on the city’s amenities, so why should Boston deal with all the impacts of a casino yet receive relatively few of the financial spoils?

But the reality is that, if Walsh prevails, both projects would probably be in trouble. Presumably residents of East Boston and Charlestown would have to vote to support the casinos, which seems unlikely given anti-gambling sentiment in the two communities. East Boston has already rejected the Suffolk Downs casino once by a margin of 56-44 percent, a vote that prompted the casino developers to move the project to a Revere portion of the racetrack.

Walsh’s legal arguments are also a bit fuzzy. He has raised questions about whether the Gaming Commission has the authority to decide whether Boston qualifies as a host. He has also argued that the Wynn and Mohegan Sun proposals rely heavily on Boston amenities such as the airport, roadways, restaurants, and theaters.

As the commissioners debated their next move on Thursday, their body language was hard to read. The one exception was Gaming Commission chairman Stephen Crosby, who clearly seemed miffed at the delays being caused by Boston’s tactics. He accused Boston of looking for “technicalities to quibble about” and said the commission was “bending over backwards to give the city a fair opportunity.”

So what is Walsh’s end game? Is he standing up for East Boston and Charlestown residents? Possibly, but it’s hard to believe that Walsh wants to derail the casinos, since his union supporters are counting on the projects to deliver thousands of jobs. Is he using the host community challenge as leverage to extract more concessions from the casino operators? That would make political sense, but he’ll have to move quickly before the Gaming Commission makes its ruling. Right now, the commissioners seem inclined to decide host community status based on where the casino is physically located, which would leave Boston on the outside looking in.

–BRUCE MOHL     

BEACON HILL

House and Senate leaders are uncertain about the next move with minimum wage legislation, State House News reports.

MUNICIPAL MATTERS

For the second time in two days, Boston bids farewell to a fallen firefighter. Globe columnist Larry Harmon says it is now time to ask the hard questions about the department’s command structure and other aspects of its policies and operations and whether they may have contributed in any way to the tragedy.

Fall River Mayor Will Flanagan has so far spent $68,000 on legal bills in a fight to recoup part of a $1.6 million payment from a settlement between the Environmental Protection Agency and Dominion Energy, which the city lost out on after failing to meet a filing deadline.

Salem and other North Shore cities eye a program that would track down the owners of derelict properties and force them to clean them up, the Salem News reports.

CASINOS

The state Gaming Commission indicated it will likely push back the timeline to award a casino license in the Southeast region to February of next year.

NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON

A Senate panel votes to declassify a report on CIA interrogations during the presidency of George W. Bush, NPR reports.

While there’s little doubt Republicans will retain their majority in the House, some of the GOP’s top leaders are among 13 Republican congressman who have announced they will leave the Capitol at the end of this term.

Republicans consider their next challenge to federal campaign finance laws.

ELECTIONS

Martha Coakley and Steve Grossman are jockeying for delegate votes in the run-up to the Democratic convention in June, throwing their political weight around in ways that could squeeze some or all of the three other Democrats vying for the gubernatorial nomination off the ballot, says the Globe‘s Frank Phillips.  

Republicans tee up US Rep. John Tierney for his vote on a cancer research bill that split the Massachusetts House delegation.

A Scott Brown run for US Senate in New Hampshire would represent a trifecta for the former Cosmo model: Three US Senate campaigns against three different female opponents.

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

Ben Stein , a one-time speechwriter for Richard Nixon and who had a moment of fame in a comedy quiz show, calls Sen. Elizabeth Warren a “genuine moron” and says income inequality and poverty are a necessary function of capitalism and democracy.

Housing for the wealthy is booming in Boston. For everybody else, not so much.

EDUCATION

Oklahoma is on the verge of joining Indiana in withdrawing from the Common Core educational standards that most states are adopting, Governing reports.

St. John’s Prep in Danvers breaks ground on new $22 million academic building, the Eagle-Tribune reports.

Harvard announced yesterday the creation of a task force to recommend improved policies addressing sexual misconduct and assault.

HEALTH CARE

Addressing a congressional oversight panel, the director of the state Health Connector blamed its website woes on CGI, the software contractor the state recently tossed overboard,

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT

The state is set to receive $73 million for the cleanup of the severely polluted National Fireworks Superfund site in Hanover as part of a national $5.15 billion settlement agreement reached in federal court.

How Barnstable, and the rest of the Cape, will fare with climate change.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

A recent Supreme Court ruling has rippled its way through the case against a Needham physician, leading prosecutors to scale back the charges against him related to recklessly prescribing painkiller medications.

The sign outside the office building in Newburyport advertised Thai hot stone massages, but inside, police say, more than stones was being offered, the Eagle-Tribune reports.

MEDIA

Charles Elison , writing for The Root, takes on the “white-male-led renegade hipster publications” that are populating data journalism.

The Newark Star-Ledger cuts a total of 167 jobs, including a quarter of its newsroom staff, the Daily Beast reports.

Total revenue supporting American journalism has declined by one-third since 2006, the Pew Research Center reports.

WBZ-TV and WBZ radio were honored with a prestigious Peabody Award for their coverage of last year’s Marathon bombings.

David Letterman announces his 2015 retirement from The Late Show.