Showing off what New York’s rush to develop casino games is really about, the state last week announced the minimum price to open a Big Apple gambling den will be $500 million. In other words, our leaders will sell the public, but not the chicken feed.
In fact, the fees for one of the three licenses may be higher: According to the New York Gaming Facility Board, “An applicant may offer to pay a higher license fee.”
Let the race begin! It just wouldn’t be the Empire State without another chance for the money-hunting cats to go head-to-head as they pay mind-boggling bribes to our political overlords. The same geniuses, he recalls, who authorized $11 billion in COVID unemployment fraud.
This mega-million payment for a license would come in addition to significant campaign contributions to Governor Kathy Hochul and others. For one thing, SL Green boss Marc Holliday (a big hope for a Times Square casino) gave Hochul nearly $70,000. And politicians will surely expect more generosity as the auctions go on.
And why? Casinos do nothing promote the interests of ordinary citizens.
On the much-vaunted economic front, the benefits promised by developers and hyped by elected officials never materialize. Former Governor Andrew Cuomo was a big casino developer, but a quick look at the $200 million deficit that hit upstate casinos in 2018 shows how foolish it is to pin any hope of profit on gambling. The thing is, newer casinos essentially cannibalize older ones – witness the fall of 14 casinos in Atlantic City.
Gambling rooms also have significant social costs. Players tend to be poorer, which means that any income made from them is, in effect, a highly regressive tax. And casinos are also crime magnets. Data suggests they are responsible for as much as 8% of crime in their host counties. A new one is literally the last thing New York needs as Mayor Eric Adams and the NYPD battle to effect public safety change here.
The battle over new casinos, and especially one in the city, is a clear case of politics versus the public they are supposed to serve. The fact that the public will almost certainly lose is a bad reminder of the sheer greed that Albany will continue to harbor until voters deliver major policy change.
