Last updated: March 26, 2024
The New York Gaming Commission faces delays in issuing casino licenses, with zoning law revisions necessary for venues in the five boroughs. Various bureaucratic and legislative obstacles contribute to the extended timeline, pushing decisions on winning bidders to late 2025.
In his newest speech, Robert Williams, the Executive Director of the NYGC, emphasized the difficulties represented by the one-month delay for casino operators to apply for downstate licenses. He stated that this delay is mostly caused by the authorities of New York City not having completed changes to the zoning regulations, expounding further on the one gaming venue per borough.
Therefore, the process of modifying the zoning laws is forecasted to continue further into this year. There is a very small chance that the winning company will be selected before 2025. Last November, Mayor Eric Adams announced a citywide zoning text amendment that was practically a legalized cover to set up gaming halls in all five boroughs.
Nevertheless, the potential line-up may need to undergo ten similar additional procedural steps to be effective. Williams convinced them that this timetable fits into the act that applies to this case and that the local zoning approvals approval could be done timely. He, therefore, made sure that the casino plan was well-drafted and was all-encompassing.
The first attempt was to get the bidding window opened within the start of Mars month (i.e. before July). Nevertheless, the current state of affairs suggests a decreasing probability of realizing this prospect.
While certain authorities have warned that the year 2025 could be the reason for that, they have pointed to the issues of bureaucracy and time, among others. Still, the representatives of the gaming industry and their observers suggested that it was quite likely that the licenses for the New York casino would be granted by the coming few days.
Also, no recording of casino applications and licensing fees in Governor Kathy Hochul’s (D-NY) budget suiting the current fiscal year should be taken as evidence that Albany was supposed to leave all those decisions on the table for this year. In the incoming year 2025-2026, as per Williams, the State does not anticipate any revenue generators earlier.
Further, there’s a strong likelihood that a few gaming firms are refraining from the bidding process until they see the politicians repealing the neighbouring parklands around them.
The fact that two of the developers are Bally’s in the Bronx and Steve Cohen and Hard Rock International into, Queens, here is the evidence.
While the litigation brought by other party proprietors, like Hofstra University, is another barrier to the Las Vegas Sands’ intention to build a casino resort in Nassau County, it should be noted that such lawsuits are hardly a new phenomenon in the struggle for nearly every big project on the East coast.
Almost everyone believes that Sands’ bid will be among the top candidates for a casino license in the next rounds of voting in New York.
Presently, it appears that only MGM Resorts International, which owns Empire City in Yonkers, and Resorts World New York, located in Queens, would be prepared to take part in a bidding process that begins shortly. If Sands can move past the previously mentioned legal issues, the same might apply to it.
Still, only Resorts World New York in Queens is located in one of the five boroughs, so officials in Albany and the city may want to make sure that gaming companies considering Manhattan have an even playing field because that could result in more tax money coming into the state.
The bidding process will begin with pitches from companies, including Wynn Resorts and Caesars Entertainment, for casino hotels in Manhattan.
Marilyn Chavez is an associate researcher at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, where she studied the mathematical probabilities and aspects of casino games like slot machines. She’s written several case studies which have been published by multiple problem-gaming institutions to help spread awareness about the dangers of online gambling and gambling addiction. She also presented a 2019 Ted talk on the topic of gambling among minors.
