|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
By: Hadassa Kalatizadeh
New York State lawmakers are at odds with each other as to the timeline to award the three lucrative casino licenses. As reported by Crain’s NY, on Thursday, the powerful four-member state Gaming Facility Location Board, which will have the say in selecting the winning casino bidders, met briefly in a conference room in Harlem to set a new timeline. Back in March, the state gaming officials decided to update the timeline so as to give all the applicants enough time to work out local land-use approvals.
The New York State panel voted to approve a slowed-down timeline for awarding the lucrative licenses in downstate New York City. This decision was made despite attempts by some state lawmakers to speed up the process, hoping to expedite the anticipated heavy tax revenues and in a bid to create jobs sooner.
So far, there are 11 known casino bidders, and based on the latest rules set in June, the applications will not be due until June 27, 2025. The timeline to award licenses is currently said to be Dec. 31, 2025.
Per Crain’s, it will ultimately be up to Gov. Kathy Hochul to decide whether or not to speed up the process. Bidders who are ready to go and don’t need special zoning changes, including the existing racetrack casinos in Queens’ Resort World by Genting, and Empire City Casino in Yonkers, prefer the expedited plan. The slower plan would be good news for applicants like Steve Cohen’s plan for a casino in the empty lot at Citified and several other bidders who are still waiting on local approvals before they can advance.
Last month, legislature had pushed a bill that would have dramatically sped up the downstate casino licensing. That bill required applications to be submitted by Aug. 31 of this year. The bill was spearheaded by state Sen. Joseph Addabbo, whose district formerly included Resortworld in Queens. Addabbo said in an interview that his bill would “codify” hard deadlines for casino applications and licenses, whereas the state hasn’t set specific dates. He said the board’s vote against the faster timeline only “lends to the vagueness” of a process that has already taken much longer than lawmakers expectations when they had approved three downstate casinos back in 2022. “We are late,” Addabbo said. “We need to figure out, as a state, how long do we have the people of New York wait for these construction jobs and the MTA funding?”
Gov. Kathy Hochul has not yet said whether she will sign the bill, which would be perceived as a nod of approval for certain casino bidders who don’t need any local permits. The panel’s vote acted as a reproof for the sped-up timeline. “A deadline of Aug. 30 of this year is too soon and would put people, some potential applicants, under a lot of pressure and would favor some and disfavor others,” Gaming Facility Location Board member Stuart Rabinowitz, an attorney and former Hofstra University president, said at Thursday’s meeting.
Per Crain’s, Addabbo and his allies maintain that speeding up license awards could help with the budget gap, especially after Gov. Hochul’s congestion pricing tolls were put on hold. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is supposed to get $1.5 billion in licensing fees from the three winning casino bidders starting in 2026.
