SURPRISE: But that might not even be the hardest part. Neither Governor Andrew Cuomo nor other key legislators have bought in yet on a Yonkers casino or on mobile sports betting.
NOT A FAN OF GAMBLING: In fact, Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie, a Bronx Democrat, told The Capitol Pressroom public radio show on Wednesday, “Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of gambling.”
EVERYONE WANTS A NYC CASINO: Will MGM’s Yonkers Empire City Casino Under Perform And Fail To Live Up To Expectations In The Coming Casino Explosion
Genting has offered a bid for an Orange County casino at the Sterling Forest ski resort area that straddles the New Jersey border and is a larger property that can offer more family focused amenities than Yonkers’s MGM casino
As MGM’s latest lobbying for a real Yonkers casino plays out, the New York state law only opens the door for up to three casinos in the New York City area once 2023 rolls around.
And there are a lot of big casino players ready to fight to be one of those casinos four years from now.
Soon New Yorkers can forget about #MGM, as they take a $3.00 the subway ride to play casino table games like poker, roulette and craps at Aqueduct.
Resorts World at Aqueduct Raceway joined MGM in its backing of new casino licenses.
The Queens site has the same parent, Malaysian gaming company Genting, as Resorts World Catskills.
So while the latter could be harmed somewhat by the addition of more gambling at Yonkers, the Queens site would benefit the parent company enormously if live dealer games and sports betting were made available.
Will the nearby Meadowlands Sports Complex have a casino by then?
The landscape of the tri-state area — don’t forget about MGM’s proposed Bridgeport, Connecticut casino! — will change dramatically in the coming decade. It will be fascinating to see who wins big, and who loses by the same margin.
The lag in bringing sports betting to the four new casinos also doesn’t bode well for MGM in Yonkers.
What Yonkers taxpayers are not being told is that one of the aspects of the New York state law passed in 2013 to allow for four new commercial casinos was that no casino be built in the New York City region before 2023.
The upstate casinos already are entitled to as much as $300 million or so in rebates from their upfront costs if the 2023 timetable is moved up for MGM in Yonkers , and this massive penalty is something that New York State can’t afford right now
The question is whether MGM in Yonkers and Genting in Queens can promise enough dollars to offset the rebates due to the four existing casinos.