The number of licenses to open new casinos in April is 3. Mayor Adams would like to divert at least two of them to Manhattan and the suburbs of New York. In Times Square, Coney Island in Yonkers (Empire City Casino) and Queens City Field, where there is already plenty of parking, options are already being considered. Another casino is about to be built in the Hamptons but is in the Shinnecock Indian Reserve on the outskirts of Southampton. The second home population is grumbling about public order traffic problems and perhaps also because they fear an increase in crime closely linked to gambling and sports betting. The final decision, however, is up to the local Indian population.
But it is certainly the ideas in the advanced stages of formation that concern the top floors of a department store on Fifth Street, a modern waterfront building overlooking the East River, and the gleaming Times Square itself that are attracting the most interest and potential investors. .
These Manhattan projects would be considered luxury casinos, “Model Monte Carlo” to attract not only wealthy New Yorkers who work on Wall Street and populate skyscrapers but also wealthy tourists who live in 5-star hotels or own land on Park Avenue. from tens of millions of dollars each.
The new gambling commission must be finalized by early October. She will be called upon to consider individual applications because a full casino license is very robust and expensive and costs up to $ 500 million. In fact, it allows not only the installation of slot machines or the instant lottery, but also poker tables, blackjack, dice, and roulette and the entire lucrative hospitality system.
Green table lobbyists for billionaires are already at work. They claim that casinos, as Las Vegas has taught, but not Atlantic City, bring jobs, tourists, and higher taxes to the city.
The truth is, as Philadelphia has shown, it does not always bring surprising results, but it often raises the price of the whole industry.
But if Mayor Adams in Manhattan plans to copy Monte Carlo, this issue is likely to become a topic of discussion in the next primary and midterm elections in November.
