Tioga Downs Casino & Resort has enhanced its ability to compete in New York’s increasingly crowded casino market with the opening of a 161-room hotel.
The hotel debuted December 1, almost a year to the day that a machine gaming venue attached to Tioga Downs harness racetrack expanded to a full-scale casino with live table games, one of four licensed by the state after New York voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2013 to allow Las Vegas-style commercial casinos.
The latest expansion includes a golf course and clubhouse, a variety of food and beverage outlets and meetings facilities.
And it couldn’t come at a better time for privately held parent American Racing & Entertainment, which also owns the Vernon Downs harness track and racino near Utica and has struggled to boost the profitability of both tracks and their supporting gaming.
Earlier this year, Vernon Downs was granted tax breaks by the Legislature after American threatened to shut it down; while farther south, the new casino at Tioga Downs, which lies on the Pennsylvania border just west of Binghamton, is expected to miss by around $30 million its first-year gaming revenue forecast of $103 million.
The other two operating commercial casinos―del Lago Resort & Casino in the Finger Lakes and Rivers Casino & Resort in Schenectady, both of which opened in February―are experiencing similar challenges in the early going with maximizing their markets despite the addition of hotels at both properties. Including Tioga Downs Casino the three are on track to miss first-year projections by a combined $220 million in a state where competition for the gaming consumer extends also to six Indian-owned casinos, nine racetracks with slots and a lottery.
There is more on the way too.
The Oneida Indian Nation is opening another casino next year, its third, with the aim of strengthening its position in the greater Syracuse market.
In March, the fourth commercial casino license will become operational with the scheduled opening of Resorts World Catskills, the closest of the four to New York City, and with a price tag of $1.2 billion the most elaborate of the group by far. Plans call for 100,000 square feet of gaming, a 332-room hotel and a golf course.
