{"id":13366,"date":"2014-04-22T12:17:42","date_gmt":"2014-04-22T20:17:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=13366"},"modified":"2014-04-22T12:31:36","modified_gmt":"2014-04-22T20:31:36","slug":"last-minute-scramble-in-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/last-minute-scramble-in-new-york\/","title":{"rendered":"Last-minute scramble in New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saratoga Springs<\/strong> Mayor Joanne Yepsen<\/strong>\u00a0(below<\/em>) must be the optimistic politician alive. She’s not only OK with Saratoga Raceway & Casino<\/strong> taking its expansion plans elsewhere<\/a>, she actually gave it her blessing, boasting of her city’s “thriving downtown, successful city center, two horse race tracks and a wealth of natural beauty and cultural assets.”<\/p>\n

\"Joanne<\/a>What Saratoga Raceway owners propose to do is build an offsite casino in East Greenbush<\/strong>, a town that voted favorably in last November’s casino referendum. This would give Saratoga Raceway a satellite facility in the Albany<\/strong> area, just across the Hudson River<\/strong>. To this end, Saratoga investors have bought 72 acres in East Greenbush<\/a> — chosen from among 15 sites — and are prepared to invest $300 million in a casino. They’ve optioned another 380 acres for a spa and golf course. Praising his “spectacular” new view of Albany, lead investor James Featherstonhaugh<\/strong> said “Our decision there is final: We’re going to bid from East Greenbush …\u00a0I’m really excited about the location and what we can do\u00a0there.”<\/p>\n

East Greenbush officials are on record<\/strong> as supporting “reasonable” casino development, although what is reasonable remains in the eye of the beholder. The reasonableness of “300-room hotel, nightclub, sports bar, show room and 20,000 square feet of high-end retail space” remains to be seen. A split of the $11.4 million annual payment to the host city and county could make a lot of believers. In the meantime, Saratoga Raceway has to contend with a fast-coalescing Albany bid by David Flaum<\/strong> and a nascent one from Schenectady<\/strong>. Saratoga investors fear that their racino could suffer a 50% loss of business when a rival casino opens in the Capitol Region. By setting up shop in East Greenbush, they could keep it all in the family, so to speak.<\/p>\n

There’s still room for more, though. DeLaet’s Landing<\/strong>, in Renssalaer<\/strong>, is unclaimed and Mayor Dan Dwyer<\/strong> describes it as “shovel-ready.” With the deadline for application fees fast approaching<\/a>, we’ll see who’s serious and who’s blowing smoke.<\/p>\n

Vladimir Putin’s plan<\/strong> to put casinos in newly seized Crimea<\/strong> is being called “weird<\/a>,” among other things. Its purpose is to promote Crimean self-sufficiency<\/a>, especially since the region is suffering a budget deficit and Russia<\/strong> can’t carry it as a charity case<\/a>. We’re talking about a despot who cracked down on gambling five years ago and a vast country with only one casino, in remote Azov City<\/strong>. Crimea is hobbled by similar circumstances. Also, as casino expert Andrew Gellatly<\/strong> notes, gaming moguls\u00a0\u201care not interested in any place that doesn\u2019t have political stability.\u201d Sheldon Adelson<\/strong> and Steve Wynn<\/strong> will vouch for that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saratoga Springs Mayor Joanne Yepsen\u00a0(below) must be the optimistic politician alive. She’s not only OK with Saratoga Raceway & Casino taking its expansion plans elsewhere, she actually gave it her blessing, boasting of her city’s “thriving downtown, successful city center, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14,22,101,111],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13366"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13366"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13373,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13366\/revisions\/13373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}