Still, licensing fees alone are attractive to state officials: Bidding to operate a casino in the New York area will start at $500 million per license.
Casinos can be taxed at a much higher rate than other types of businesses, and the money is usually funneled to schools, police departments, and infrastructure projects.
A 2011 paper by Douglas Walker, a professor of economics at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, found that casinos typically provided a short-term revenue boost that died out in the long run, in part because new casinos competing for the same pool of customers continued. to open nearby.
This effect has contributed to the struggles of Atlantic City, where several casinos have failed over the past decade. Many states in the Northeast have legalized their own casinos, so people who used to drive to Atlantic City can now gamble closer to home.
In an interview, Professor Walker predicted that New York’s density and wide variety of entertainment options would limit a casino’s economic impact on the city.
That was the experience of Philadelphia, where the first casino opened in 2010, according to Alan Greenberger, deputy mayor in charge of economic development at the time. SugarHouse Casino, which is now known as Rivers Casino Philadelphia, was built along the waterfront just north of downtown.
The city government initially fought the casino, but Mr. Greenberger admitted that it had helped fund improvements to the sewage system and employed hundreds of local workers. The business model, he said, was a “strange duality of good and evil.”
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