The Seneca Nation’s expansion of its Buffalo casino is proceeding well, while in Rochester, city officials rejected a petition seeking to stop a proposed slots parlor.
The $40 million Buffalo Creek Casino expansion is coming at a good time for the city as well as the Seneca Nation.
The casino is located in Buffalo’s historic Cobblestone District, and city officials hope the expanded gaming operations will generate an addition $6 million in annual revenue sharing income.
The Seneca Nation, meanwhile, is undertaking the task as Indian gaming is growing. The National Indian Gaming Commission reported tribal casinos did $29.9 billion in business in 2015.
That is a 5 percent increase from 2014 and the largest increase in tribal gaming revenues in a decade.
The Seneca Nation opened the Buffalo Creek Casino in 2007 and averages 3 million patrons per year.
The tribe began expanding it last year and completed all structural steel work in May. Once opened next spring, the Seneca Nation said it will hire another 300 employees, at least half of whom will be Buffalo residents.
Meanwhile, in Rochester, city officials rejected a residents’ petition that sought to ban any casinos in the city.
An ad-hoc group of residents submitted the petition in response to Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren’s recent talks with the Seneca Nation regarding potential development of a combined performing arts center and slots parlor at the city’s Midtown site.
City officials, though, said the petition did no conform with local laws and rejected it. City attorney Brian Curran said it would not be enforceable, as only state and federal regulators have any jurisdiction over tribal casinos.
