Gaming giants and real-estate honchos are placing all their chips on the desk to win one in all three coveted licenses to function a on line casino in or round New York Metropolis.
“There’s nonetheless a big market for land-based casinos on this nation and the New York Metropolis metropolitan market particularly,” stated Albany Regulation College Professor Bennett Liebman, a former deputy secretary to the governor for gaming and racing, to The Put up.
Gaming pursuits have already spent tens of millions of {dollars} on lobbying and media consultants to make their case to native and state officers as deadlines creep nearer to submit bids subsequent yr.
Listed below are the deep-pocketed contenders:
MANHATTAN
Location: Hudson Yards
Identify: Wynn New York Metropolis
Developer: Associated Corporations/Wynn Resorts.
Particulars: $12 billion on line casino advanced that features a resort, workplace house, flats, and a 5.6-acre park
Professionals: Increase to adjoining Javits Conference Middle, views of Hudson River, entry to the Excessive Line
Cons: Mates of the Excessive Line are spearheading group opposition, native elected officers not enthused by undertaking, both.
Location: Instances Sq.
Identify: Caesars Palace Instances Sq.
Developer: Caesars Leisure, SL Inexperienced and Jay-Z Roc Nation
Particulars: $4 billion on line casino advanced that will be constructed at 1515 Broadway within the coronary heart of Instances Sq..
Professionals: Jay-Z curates the leisure, and there’s entry to the Nice White Manner.
Cons: Opposition from theater producers — the Broadway League — and the No Instances Sq. coalition that features neighborhood teams
Location: Far West Aspect
Identify: Avenir
Developer: Silverstein Properties/Greenwood Gaming and Leisure
Particulars: World Commerce Middle developer Larry Silverstein is spearheading the plan, which entails a 1.8 million-square-foot undertaking for a resort, on line casino, leisure and residential advanced on vacant land at West forty first Road and eleventh Avenue, simply north of the Jacob Javits Middle.
Professionals: As with Wynn NYC, the Avenir could be a lift to the Javits Conference Middle and tourism trade.
Cons: Overcoming native opposition might be a problem.
Location: Fifth Avenue
Identify: Saks Fifth Avenue On line casino
Developer: Saks Fifth Avenue and Hudson’s Bay Firm
Particulars: The luxurious division retailer at 611 Fifth Ave. between East forty ninth and East fiftieth streets — subsequent to St. Patrick’s Cathedral — desires to deliver high-rollers to the house of excessive vogue on the highest flooring of its flagship constructing.
Professionals: Elevated foot site visitors for a Fifth Avenue damage by the COVID-19 pandemic
Cons: Group opposition. Would wish divine intervention to find a on line casino subsequent to New York’s most cherished Catholic church
Location: Midtown East River
Identify: Freedom Plaza
Developer: Metropolis real-estate scion Stefan Soloviev and Mohegan Solar
Particulars: 4 towers alongside the East River that would come with flats and motels with an underground on line casino
Professionals: Bid features a “Freedom Museum” and 6.7 acres of inexperienced house
Cons: Opposition from native politicians
QUEENS
Location: South Ozone Park-Jamaica
Identify: Resorts World New York Metropolis at Aqueduct
Developer: Genting/Resorts World On line casino
Particulars: The bidder, which already owns an present slots parlor, has proposed a $5 billion plan that features a pitch to broaden its present operations and in addition supply stay desk video games resembling black jack and craps. The proposal features a new 7,000-seat live performance venue and sports activities coaching facility.
Professionals: Its slots parlor, which opened in 2011, has generated greater than $4 billion for state coffers, and its bid has robust area people and political assist.
Cons: Resorts World Las Vegas — a separate on line casino that’s a part of the identical Genting empire — is ensnared in an alleged unlawful bookmaking scandal involving the interpreter of baseball celebrity Shohei Ohtani.
Location: Willets Factors/Flushing Meadows/Corona
Identify: Metropolitan Park
Developer: Mets proprietor Steve Cohen and Exhausting Rock Worldwide
Particulars: Sprawling $8 billion gaming heart, resort and music venue close to the Mets’ Citi Subject stadium.
Professionals: A part of an ongoing reclamation undertaking to spruce up concrete parcels round Citi Subject and Willets Level, a plan that individually features a skilled soccer stadium and housing. The undertaking touts entry to twenty acres of inexperienced house and Flushing Bay.
Cons: Cohen has not but received approval from the state legislature to transform the designated parkland property eyed for the undertaking to be used as a on line casino leisure advanced due to opposition from native state Sen. Jessica Ramos. Plan additionally might reduce into Genting Resort World at Aqueduct’s present slots enterprise simply miles away.
BROOKLYN
Location: Coney Island
Identify: The Coney
Developer: Thor Equities, Chickasaw Nation’s World Gaming Options, Saratoga On line casino Holdings and Legends Hospitality Group
Particulars: $3 billion “Coney” on line casino, resort and conference corridor erected simply steps from the storied Brooklyn boardwalk and seashore, smack between the positioning’s iconic Cyclone and Marvel Wheel
Professionals: Would assist rejuvenate Coney Island as a significant vacationer vacation spot
Cons: Native Group Board 13 voted overwhelmingly in opposition to the undertaking, with opponents saying they don’t need the enduring seashore to be become Atlantic Metropolis.
BRONX
Location: Ferry Level
Identify: Bally’s On line casino
Developer: Bally’s
Particulars: Bally’s acquired the lease to run the golf course at Ferry Level from the Trump Group and now hopes to transform parts of the positioning’s parking zone and apply vary, which depend as parkland, right into a on line casino heart.
Professionals: Situated on the foot of the Whitestone Bridge, the on line casino would have quick access from Queens, The Bronx, Lengthy Island and Westchester County. Waterfront views of the East River and Lengthy Island Sound
Cons: As with the Cohen undertaking, Bally’s wants legislative approval to transform the parkland for industrial use.
NASSAU COUNTY, LI
Location: Uniondale
Identify: Sands New York
Developer: Las Vegas Sands
Particulars: The Sands secured a lease from Nassau County to transform the Nassau Veterans Memorial Museum Coliseum right into a on line casino advanced with a stay efficiency theater, a resort and wellness spa, eating and conference house.
Professionals: Massive Nassau-Suffolk market not far Queens border, robust assist from Republican-led authorities
Cons: Sturdy opposition spearheaded by close by Hofstra College
YONKERS
Location: Yonkers Raceway
Identify: Empire Metropolis
Developer: MGM Resorts Worldwide
Particulars: The Raceway launched slot-machine-style gaming in 2006 with its Empire Metropolis On line casino. Now it’s aiming for a full-on gaming license with a $3 billion enlargement plan that will supply stay desk bets.
Professionals: As with Resorts World at Aqueduct, it has a observe file of success and native assist.
Cons: Gaming skilled Liebman describes MGM’s preliminary proposal as “underwhelming,” particularly compared to the Hudson Yards, Cohen, Instances Sq. and Sands proposals. “If different glitzier proposals really attain the Gaming Facility Location Board, can they compete?” he stated of Yonkers.
Each Liebman and John Sabini, former chairman of the state racing and wagering board, informed The Put up that the prevailing slots-parlor bidders — at Aqueduct and Yonkers — are the “favorites” to win two of the licenses.
They’ve each been tax-generating money cows for the state for greater than a decade and luxuriate in robust native political assist, the consultants famous.
Revenues from the gaming firms who’re awarded the brand new on line casino licenses will assist fund the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
“I’d say the `racinos’ are the favorites. They’ve a observe file of being a companion with the state for a very long time,” Sabini stated.
The present parlors will not be shoo-ins, significantly when their proposals are judged in opposition to a number of the competing dazzling plans, the consultants stated.
However group and political opposition to the opposite plans might matter greater than the proposals’ deserves, they stated.
“There’s going to be opposition to each proposal,” stated Sabini, who significantly was skeptical of any Manhattan pitch that survives the assessment course of.
Genting Resorts World spent $2.87 million lobbying in Albany final yr to attempt to persuade foes of its plan’s deserves.
Cohen and his companion additionally doled out greater than $2.5 million mixed pitching their plan.
Given hostility to a brand new on line casino in Manhattan, each gaming consultants rated Las Vegas Sands’ bid a severe contender for the third license up for grabs.
“The Sands proposal might be the strongest proposal proper now. Lengthy Island/Nassau-Suffolk is a reasonably good market,” Sabini stated.
The proposals should safe a two-thirds vote from elected officers on native six-member Group Advisory Committees earlier than even being thought of by a statewide gaming facility location board after which the state Gaming Fee.
Liebman stated Massive Apple Mayor Eric Adams’ latest political woes, triggered by a number of federal probes of his administration, is an “added wildcard” that would affect the choice course of.
“If the widely pro-casino Adams is now not the mayor and doesn’t appoint an advisory committee member, doesn’t this make the method even more durable for many of the New York Metropolis-based on line casino tasks?,” the prof stated.
The profitable bidders should pay the state a minimal $500 million up-front license charge.