Las Vegas Sands has hired former New York Gov. David Paterson to lead the gaming giant’s push for a casino in New York City.
The Big Apple is considered one of last major untapped gaming markets in the United States, and other industry leaders, notably incumbents MGM Resorts International and Genting, have made no secret of their desire to see full-scale casino gambling there.
“New York City is one of the few remaining good markets in the United States where you could see billions of dollars of investment in gaming facilities, provided that the tax rate and regulatory framework are set up properly,” said Brendan Bussmann, a partner with Global Market Advisors, an industry consultancy based in Las Vegas. “Every major gaming company will take a look at the market because opportunities like this are few and far between at this point.”
MGM and Genting operate thousands of machine games, respectively, at Empire City Casino at Yonkers Raceway and Resorts World New York City at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, but current state law prohibits them from offering Las Vegas-style house-banked slot machines and table games.
“Accelerating the conversion of Empire City to a fully licensed casino would immediately create new, well-paying jobs and billions in economic impact that could fund schools in Westchester and across the state,” the property’s President and CEO Uri Clinton said.
New York voters approved seven full-scale commercial casinos in a 2013 referendum. Four opened upstate between 2016 and 2018 with a seven-year head start included in the enabling legislation over potential downstate competition, effectively delaying casino development in New York City until 2023.
Las Vegas Sands, MGM, Genting—with other deep-pocketed bidders likely to join the fray—want to see the moratorium scrapped. Doing so would require them to compensate the upstate casinos to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, in addition to paying a license fee estimated at $500 million per casino and whatever percentage tax on gaming revenue is imposed.
LVS says downstate casinos could bring the state $1.5 billion in dedicated revenue and create 15,000 permanent union jobs and 15,000 union construction jobs.
Lawmakers, however, have been cool to an earlier start date, as has Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
“I’m not a great fan of the gaming industry, but it’s here, it’s real, states all around New York are doing it,” Cuomo said. “Obviously more people lose in gambling than win, and if there’s not a significant economic benefit to the state, or a region of the state, then I would rather not do it.”
The job facing Paterson, who served as governor from 2008 to 2010 and later chaired the New York State Democratic Committee, is to sway him the other way.
“Is it going to happen in 2023 or 2020? Why not start three years earlier?” said the former governor, who is joining LVS as a senior vice president. “This is really a tremendous opportunity to create jobs in New York.”
