Jeff Gural, chairman of American Racing and Entertainment, which owns two New York casinos, says he’s “healthy, but relatively miserable on every other account.”
Gural attributes his misery to the ongoing closure of Vernon Downs Casino Hotel in Vernon and Tioga Downs Casino Resort in Nichols, as well as his inability to get a sit-down meeting with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Gural said he needs just a few minutes with Cuomo to persuade him to reopen commercial casinos in the state (horse racing is offered at Vernon Downs twice a week, without spectators, but the casinos are closed).
It’s especially frustrating, he said, since the Oneida Indian Nation’s three casinos in Central New York have been open since June 10 and the Seneca Nation’s three Western New York casinos and other gaming halls have also opened. Lakeside Gaming in Union Springs, run by the Cayuga Nation, has been open since the middle of May.
Of his two properties, Gural said it’s more important to reopen Tioga Downs because it’s a destination. “We’ve been unable to convince the governor that it’s actually safe. We don’t disagree with the governor’s concern about not having a spike in opening things up, but as you know, we have not seen that elsewhere—including in New York City.”
In fact, Gural said, New Yorkers would be better off patronizing local casinos than traveling out of state to Mohegan Sun in Connecticut or one of the nine reopened casino properties in Atlantic City. “Those testing here are testing positive at half a percent. I’m sure it’s higher at Wilkes-Barre (home of Mohegan Sun Pocono) and Atlantic City.”
New York State “has full control over what we’re doing, and no control over the Indian casinos. I’m fully convinced we’re safer, but haven’t been able to convince the governor, who has gotten the numbers down. It’s problematical.”
He welcomed strict safety measures, and said he would abide by them to the letter. “The gaming commission (would have) people on the floor at all times. If we were to agree to masks and close every other slot, they would be monitoring that. If we had people without masks, they would go to the security people and have them escorted out.
“We would assume if we could open, it would be with maybe 50 percent capacity, higher cleaning, taking temperatures and restricting people from states that are on the governor’s list of dangerous places. And eliminate people from counties with spikes.”
Not only has he been stonewalled by the governor, Gural said he’s had no response from anyone in the Cuomo administration. “We’re flying blind. If you’re not going to let us open, that’s one thing. But at least let us know what we have to do to reopen. It seems hard to say it makes any sense when Vernon Downs is closed and Turning Stone, which is five miles away, is open.”
One of his strongest arguments in favor of reopening, he said, would be the livelihoods of the 12,000 casino and racino workers whose jobs hang in the balance. “They’re going to be in trouble, because they’re going to stop getting the $600 payments starting (this) week.”
In keeping with the federal WARN Act, Gural has sent out advance notice of layoffs that might last more than six months. He’s continued to pay his employees, and said he’s not threatening to close, though he recently told the Utica Observer, “At some point, we run out of money.”
“It would really be a last resort to close permanently,” Gural told GGB News. Ironically, he added, his “one ray of hope” is that the state is “broke. Really broke. The economic damage to New York has been catastrophic.”
Not surprisingly, he’s a proponent of mobile sports betting, which would be “a big boost” to the state’s commercial casinos, including Rivers Casino Resort in Schenectady, Resorts World Catskills in Monticello, and Del Lago Resort & Casino in Waterloo.
“It doesn’t make sense to force people living in New York State to either bet illegally or go to New Jersey,” he said. “We’re asking for a lower tax rate because we’re competing with tribal casinos. We pay a much higher tax rate on slots than tribes and they pay nothing on table games. We’re competitively disadvantaged.” Commercial casinos pay 10 percent on tables and between 37 percent and 45 percent on slots.
Gural insists that he supports the governor. “Health comes first. If we thought we couldn’t open safely, we wouldn’t open, but we see casinos open all around us and we haven’t heard of major problems. I think that people who wear masks and sit in front of a slot, the chances are pretty slim” that they will become infected.
He added, “The truth of the matter is that Turning Stone has been open for six weeks and we have not seen any spike in that area, and we know our customers are going there. I think if we could get a face-to-face with the governor we could convince him, but we haven’t been able to do that.”
