New York state is poised to deal three casino licenses after the five-person Gaming Facility Location Board approved each of the remaining downstate proposals, all within New York City’s borders.
The board, appointed by the Gaming Commission, gave its recommendation in Manhattan on Monday, setting up the possibility that each of the three contenders will be granted a license before the end of the year.
The proposals are:
- The $8 billion Metropolitan Park bid by Steve Cohen, the New York Mets owner and billionaire hedge fund investor, and his partner, Hard Rock International, to transform some 50 acres of parking lots around the Citi Field baseball stadium in Queens.
- The $5.5 billion Resorts World New York City plan, undertaken by Malaysia’s Genting Group, would involve expanding the casino at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens into a 5.6 million-square-foot gambling destination.
- And Bally's Bronx project, billed as the largest single private development in the New York borough, would build a $4 billion hotel and casino resort at Bally’s Golf Links at Ferry Point.
All three are within about half an hour’s drive of each other. Despite that, the board didn’t see them eating into each other’s pie.
“We did look at every application very skeptically,” Vicki Been, chair of the location board, said at a news conference after the decision. “We took a very searching look at all of the applications. … We did extensive modeling.”
She said consultants the board hired ultimately determined, even after “very conservative” projections, that the New York market “is plenty strong” to warrant three casino licenses.
The proposals combined are expected to generate about $7 billion in gaming tax revenue for the state over 10 years and another $5.9 billion in hotel and other tax revenue, she said, adding that the consultants also considered the impact of online gaming competition. Each winner also has to pay a $500 million license fee.
Three different concepts
The analysis showed “the market was big enough,” Been said, adding the three projects differentiate from one another. For instance, Bally’s Bronx casino is tied to the Bally’s Golf Links while Resorts World has an “existing clientele” and “repeat business,” and Metropolitan Park is seeking to build an “entertainment district,” Been said.
“Even though they are relatively close together, they are very different in concept,” she said.
The board’s recommendation doesn’t mean a rubber-stamp approval by the commission, as the state’s gaming authority will now run background checks of the corporations involved and look at the character and fitness of the executives, among other considerations, before it grants licenses by the end of the year, Lee Park, the commission’s deputy executive director, told CoStar News.
“The downstate market is among the strongest in the nation, supported by population density, income levels and tourism,” Greg Reimers, another location board member, said Monday. A “sizeable population within a two-hour drive will support sustained visitation supplemented by domestic and international travelers. Each proposal presents a strong competitive position. … No alternative scenarios produce comparable revenue or fiscal benefits.”
Soo Kim, Bally’s chair, also said he’s not concerned about any so-called cannibalization impact.
“I grew up here in New York,” Kim said in a separate press gaggle. “To think that you have a chance to impact the city that you grew up in is pretty exciting. We get to shape the skyline in our own little way.”
Bally’s Bronx's “target customer right now is all the customers that go to Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania,” he said in an interview. “The customers exist,” he said. “It's not like we have to make up new customers.”
With gambling only making up about a quarter of Las Vegas’ revenue, New York, with some 75 million tourists a year, is also able to capitalize on dining and other revenue that come from people going to the resorts, he told CoStar News.
The recommendation brought a nearly three-year-long process into its final stretch after the state in January 2023 issued a requestion for casino licenses that led to eight official applications, including three in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn that failed to secure enough support from their respective community advisory committees to advance. MGM Resorts International, the global gaming and entertainment giant, discarded its $2.3 billion bid in the New York suburb of Yonkers in October even after the community committee signed off on it, saying its expected return on investment had changed.
“After years of community engagement and support, Metropolitan Park is one step closer to becoming a reality,” Karl Rickett, a spokesperson for the project, said in an emailed statement. “Following a fair, transparent and rigorous process, The Gaming Facility Location Board has validated the positive economic impact this project will have with billions of dollars in tax revenue.”
Resorts World New York didn’t immediately respond to a CoStar News request seeking comment.