Voters in the state of New York approved gambling expansion last year and the winning bidders of four new commercial casinos are expected to be named today.
New York’s Gaming Facility Location Board is set to select from 16 bids received from the likes of Caesars, Genting, Churchill Downs and Penn National Gaming, Bloomberg reported. The bidders are vying to build casinos in three approved regions — one near the border of Pennsylvania, another around Albany, and the last focused on an area identified as Catskill Mountains-Orange County.
Orange County is the closest to New York City –some 50 miles away — and is seen as a prime location for a casino, perhaps the most lucrative considering that city dwellers will be only an hour or so away.
Gaming Industry on Decline
It’s no secret that the U.S. gambling industry is going through a somewhat rough patch. Atlantic City shut down four of its 12 casinos this year, with another also teetering on closure.
New casinos that pop up on the East Coast tend to take away customers from existing casinos in nearby states, one of the main reasons for New Jersey’s troubles. Pennsylvania siphoned a number of Garden State gamblers in recent years and will likely experience a similar decline of its own when New York erects a casino near its border.
Tribal Casinos Already Operating in NY
There are currently five casinos in New York State that are operated by native tribes. Video slot parlors number a total of nine and are found at the state’s racetracks.
The winning bidders chosen today must still be green-lighted by the New York State Gaming Commission. It is believed that the commission will follow advice from the Gaming Facility Location Board, which was created specifically to choose the best locations for the new casinos.
What About Online Poker and Gambling?
New York’s neighbors — New Jersey and Delaware — launched regulated online gambling in 2013. That likely prompted New York legislators to consider the issue, which they have following the introduction of two online poker bills in 2014.
Sen. John Bonacic volleyed S 6913 in April, while Assemblyman J. Gary Pretlow proposed A09509 just a few weeks later. Both were similar in nature in that games of skill such as poker would be permitted for Internet wagering.
The bills mentioned the need for regulation and pointed out that New Yorkers continue to play at offshore online poker sites where adequate safeguards and security measures are not in place. That is a familiar refrain among online poker activists and one that shouldn’t be ignored in light of the incidents involving sites such as Full Tilt — found to be extremely mismanaged — and Lock Poker, where players have been waiting months for cashouts to be processed.
[geolink href=”https://www.usafriendlypokersites.com/new-york/”]Online poker in New York[/geolink] may come into play some day. New casinos will certainly help in that regard, as land-based gambling is typically a precursor to Internet gambling. In any event, New York is well ahead of most other states simply by consideration of the bills proposed this year.
