New York’s legislature has approved a tax relief package to aid the state’s struggling racetracks. But whether it will succeed at averting at least one threatened closure remains uncertain.
The competitive landscape has changed dramatically for the tracks and their machine gaming offerings since the opening in the last year of three of four full-scale commercial casinos, with a fourth slated to debut next spring in the Catskills, 90 minutes from New York City.
A bill aimed specifically at improving Saratoga Casino Hotel’s prospects passed in both the Senate and Assembly before lawmakers adjourned for the summer. It allows small-to-medium-sized gambling facilities with up to 1,900 gaming machines to use 4 percent of their net win to make improvements.
Saratoga is battling competition from the new Rivers Casino and Resort, which opened in Schenectady in February, just 25 miles to the south.
A second bill, an Assembly measure designed to help the harness track and racino at Vernon Downs, has left Jeff Gural, chairman of Vernon Downs owner American Racing and Entertainment, “extremely disappointed.”
Gural criticized the bill as a “watered-down version” of a bill passed in the Senate to amend state tax law in relation to vendor fees for video lottery gaming at the track.
“While the revised bill passed by the Senate provided us with less tax relief than we had originally asked for, it was a step in the right direction as I certainly do not want to see 300 people lose their jobs,” he said.
Vernon Downs is reeling from competition in the Syracuse area from the Oneida Indian Nation’s Turning Stone Resort & Casino and Yellow Brick Road Casino and, more recently, the new del Lago Resort & Casino. Unlike the tribal casinos and new commercial casinos its license does not permit table games. Its racino, which houses around 760 machine games, claims to be losing about $150,000 a month.
American has announced plans to close the casino and food and beverage facilities in September and the track and its amenities in November. The property’s hotel will remain open until December 18, “out of respect to the many individuals who have scheduled weddings and other events at the facility for 2017,” the company has said.
Assemblyman Anthony Brindisi said in a news release he will introduce a bill in the Legislature’s fall session aimed at keeping all the track’s facilities open.
“My hope is the owners of Vernon Downs will continue to negotiate in good faith with the state to avoid having to lay off the hundreds of workers,” he said.
