New York state's gambling czar says nothing has been preordained by the Gaming Facility Location Board, the state panel tasked with picking which among four remaining downstate casino-gambling proposals will be awarded one of three full-scale casino licenses up for grabs.
“ Everybody's on the same starting line,” Brian O’Dwyer, chair of the state gaming commission, said of the protracted process, which is expected to wrap up in December.
Last week, the last among eight competing proposals went before community advisory committees, and four emerged as finalists: the MGM Empire City in Yonkers, Bally’s Bronx, and Queens contenders Resorts World New York City and Metropolitan Park.
O’Dwyer said the “same starting line” applied to the MGM Empire City and Resorts World New York City proposals — both existing venues thought to have a leg up because they already feature more limited gaming.
Likewise, O’Dwyer said, the Bally’s Bronx proposal would suffer no prejudice in Democrat-friendly New York, even though the Trump Organization would receive a significant payout if the Bronx site is awarded a license.
Bally’s paid President Donald Trump's company $60 million for the lease of the city-owned Ferry Point golf course site. If the casino proposal is greenlit, Bally's would owe the Trump Organization another $115 million.
“ The question is, 'Who does best for the community and the state of New York in terms of tax revenues?'” O’Dwyer said. “And if somebody [personally] benefits from it, whoever it might be, so be it.”
The Gaming Facility Location Board has the task of deciding which of those should be awarded licenses. O’Dwyer said the board's members will go through “thousands of pages of material” before presenting their decisions to the gaming commission.
The board has five members, including its chair, Vicki L. Been, who served as Mayor Bill de Blasio's deputy mayor for housing and economic development. She is the Judge Edward Weinfeld professor of law at NYU Law School and a faculty director of NYU's Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy.
Been did not respond to questions about the board’s work. The other members include longtime public servants and people with experience in real estate, development and law.
All board members serve in a voluntary capacity, O’Dwyer said. Candidates need to have deep pockets: The licensing fee alone is $500 million. They also need to decide how much they’re willing to be taxed. The minimum is 25% on slot gross gaming revenue and 10% on other forms of revenue.
“ In some ways it's like an auction,” said Jerry Skurnik, a member of the gaming commission.
The bulk of the evaluation criteria — 70%, according to publicly posted guidelines — concerns economic development. Board members will consider the capital investment of each bid, as well as its ability to “maximize revenues” for the state and localities. They will also favor projects that create higher numbers of “quality jobs,” and the speed with which projects can be fully ready.
Beyond economic development, board members will also take diversity hiring into consideration. Although the federal government has taken aim at DEI initiatives, O’Dwyer stood by the state’s decision to base 10% of each bid’s evaluation on its “diversity framework,” with an eye toward hiring women, minorities and disabled veterans.
“It is not controversial on the state level. The legislation is very clear on that, and the governor is very committed on that,” O’Dwyer said. “And it is important, particularly in many of these casinos or in areas where there's a large minority population, that people from those communities get jobs. It’s as simple as that.”
O’Dwyer said successful candidates will also need to present safeguards to ensure that money laundering doesn’t take place at casinos.
“There's a significant amount of cash that goes through casinos,” O’Dwyer said. “ There are people that take advantage of that to launder drug money and other ill-gotten gains.”
Experts left open the possibility that both of the Queens-based casino projects could win licenses, and that the Gaming Facility Location Board could opt to nominate fewer than three projects for licenses.
“Anything’s possible,” said Evan Stavisky, the president of the lobbying firm Parkside Group, which is not connected to any of the remaining bids.
The process of expanding gambling in New York goes back to 2013, when voters approved a constitutional amendment allowing for the development of new casinos upstate, while simultaneously imposing a moratorium on downstate casinos.
Legislators finally lifted the moratorium in 2023, allowing for up to three new casinos in the area encompassing New York City, Long Island and Westchester County.
Stavisky said the state initially opted to award just three out of four upstate casino licenses in 2014, although it eventually relented and granted a fourth to the Southern Tier in 2016. He did not foreclose a similar outcome this year.
“ It wouldn't be unprecedented for them to award fewer than the maximum allowed, but they need a reason to do it because it's been a while to get to this point,” Stavisky said. “And the state certainly needs the revenue and it needs the jobs.”
