New York board to make final decision on four casino proposals
The Gaming Facility Location Board will decide which of the four community-approved proposals will receive one of the three New York licenses on offer.
Key Points
- Local community advisory panels have approved four of the casino development proposals
- State Gaming Facility Location Board will decide between the four where the three casino licenses on offer will go, if any
- Decision expected on December 1
The New York State Gaming Commission has long been publicly preparing to offer three licenses for new casinos to be developed or built in the state.
After the long list of proposals was drawn up, each project was then put to the local community to gauge support.
Public hearings and campaigning ensued in each case with representatives putting forward the cases for and against.
Some proposals made it as far as a Community Advisory Committee, a small group of officials who decided via a vote whether or not to grant the projects local approval.
Four of these projects made it past that stage and their fates are now being handed over to the state – the five-member Gaming Facility Board will be submitting their final reccomendations in the coming weeks, at which point the Gaming Commission itself will decide whether to ratify the board’s choices.
Still in contention are the two Queens-based bids, Hard Rock, and Genting’s Resorts World, Bally’s proposal for the Bronx and MGM Resorts’ Empire City Casino project in Yonkers, Westchester County.
Recently, the five-person board met for the first time, each member bringing banking and housing expertise to the table.
The rest of the process will be less public than what has gone before, but an announcement has been made that lays out the criteria being used to make the decision.
Good to know: Three rejected projects proposed to create new casinos within Manhattan, including a Times Square Caesars bid that was backed by Jay-Z
The board is expected, for instance, to view the economic prospects of each proposal as the crucial deciding factor.
Vicki Been will be the Board’s Chair, and she said this of the deciding process: “How realistic is their plan for what they are going to construct and how quickly are they going to construct that and be up and running?”
Crucially, while the Board is prepared to offer three licenses, it is not in any way obligated to – depending on the applications themselves, the board could award two, one or none.
A decision is expected to arrive by December 1.
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