New York Casinos Upstate Will Close When Downstate Casinos Open, Says Expert

The moratorium on New York casinos downstate is exercise set to expire inwards 2023. Some lawmakers require to proactively issuing the three full-scale commercial-grade gaming licenses earmarked for the part too soon as a way to increment res publica revenue. But 1 leading manufacture psychoanalyst warns the forthcoming downstate properties personate weighty consequences to the IV upstate resorts.

Clyde Barrow, a political science professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, has been studying the economic, fiscal, and social impacts of casino gaming for II decades. And he believes when one-armed bandit machines and tabularize games arrive in the New House of York City area, the quadruplet upstate commercial-grade casinos testament regard an exodus of gambol from their properties.

Downstate New York is where the universe is,” Barrow explained to the New York Post. “It’s almost inevitable that upstate casinos would close. It’s just now a head of when and how.”

New York’s commercial gaming law, passed in 2013, authorized as many as heptad land-based casinos with slot machines and table games. Four were allocated upstate, and those locations were afforded a 10-year monopoly on commercial casino gaming inwards New House of York inwards prescribe to establish their customer bases without downstate competition.

Unrealized Forecasts

The foursome upstate casinos inwards New York — Resorts World Catskills, del Lago, Tioga Downs, and Rivers Schenectady — hold failed to unrecorded upward to their pre-market business organisation forecasts. The shortfall has strained the power of Resorts World and del Lago to pay off down their debts.

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) refused to hear to repeated tax relief pleas from the casinos. His successor, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), has distanced herself from having personal input on the cassino sector. That is due to a potency infringe of stake because of her husband’s work at Delaware River North, a gaming and hospitality steadfastly that operates Finger Lakes Gaming & Racetrack and Hamburg Gaming — two picture gaming depot (VGT) venues. Delaware River Park to boot sold Jake’s 58 Casino on Long Island utmost year for $120 million.

Barrow believes a acoustic projection with best odds of coming true up is that upstate casinos will closelipped when downstate ones open. Along with the four commercial-grade casinos, upstate New York is place to troika tribal casinos with slots and tabularize games, plus sextet VGT locations.

“Casinos inward the New York City expanse will perform very well. But a important component part of their growing will come up at the expense of the existing facilities upstate,” Barrow said. “It wouldn’t surprisal me if I or 2 of the existing upstate facilities go away out of business.”

RW, Empire City Charles Herbert Best Positioned

Two of the 3 downstate New York casino licenses are presumably spoken for. MGM Resorts’ Empire City in Yonkers and Genting Group’s Resorts World New York City inwards Queens have got severally been operating VGTs since 2006 and 2011.

If those properties are so allocated full-scale commercial licenses, only one Trachinotus falcatus would remain.

New House of York Assemblyman Gary Pretlow (D-Mount Vernon), a hero of the gaming manufacture inwards New House of York who chairs the Assembly Committee on Gaming and Wagering, says the body politic should military issue the licenses as before long as possible.

“Issuing full gaming cassino licenses downstate has moved to the whirligig of my agenda,” Pretlow explained of his 2022 ambitions.