{"id":20782,"date":"2017-12-15T08:39:19","date_gmt":"2017-12-15T16:39:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=20782"},"modified":"2023-08-16T06:15:24","modified_gmt":"2023-08-16T14:15:24","slug":"new-york-turning-the-page-cal-neva-is-on-the-clock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/new-york-turning-the-page-cal-neva-is-on-the-clock\/","title":{"rendered":"New York: Turning the page; Cal-Neva is on the clock"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘Wait three years’ is the new rationale coming out of Albany<\/strong>, now that three new casinos in upstate New York<\/strong> have failed to meet Year One revenue projections. Taking the glass-half-full perspective, state Sen.\u00a0John Bonacic<\/strong> says that the casinos were the will of the \"\"people, adding, “Let\u2019s say, for the sake of discussion, they don\u2019t meet the projections that they expected. I still think they\u2019ve created private sector jobs. They will have been a magnet for other economic vitality coming into the area \u2013 businesses that feed off the resort, that service the resort. And I do believe it\u2019s going to help the tourism industry.” Bonacic himself is moving on, looking toward the passage of Internet gambling as the next revenue fix.”And the other thing, and not in the same glitz, is charitable gaming, to allow American Legions<\/strong> and Veterans of Foreign Wars<\/strong> posts to do charitable gaming so they can enhance their revenue. Over half of them have closed,” he adds.<\/p>\n

Of the Catskills<\/strong> region, Bonacic says, “it\u2019s a low median income \u2013 there\u2019s a lot of poverty, illiteracy. They needed it the most, so I\u2019m hoping that [Resorts World Catskills<\/strong>]\u00a0will be a catalyst for other economic vitality …\u00a0the purpose of the three casinos that exist now, we\u2019re accomplishing what we set out to do. These are areas that needed this the most. With the jobs and trying to give a shot in the arm for some economic vitality. So Schenectady<\/strong>, Tioga<\/strong>, Tyre<\/strong>, they all needed it up there and down there.”<\/p>\n

Bonacic’s opposite number in the House (they chair their respective Racing & Wagering Committees), Gary Pretlow<\/strong>, has been more critical of the overhyped revenue projections made by the new upstate operators. “I\u2019m of the suspicion that they boosted those revenues \"\"and offered more than they should have offered based on the real numbers just to get the license. And then within a year they want to turn around and say now lower the tax rate \u2013 more like a bait and switch,” Pretlow says, “They have not asked yet for a tax reduction. But I\u2019m just assuming that that\u2019s the next step. And they\u2019re going to threaten us with loss of jobs and yadda, yadda, yadda.”<\/p>\n

Pretlow pins the underperformance of the casinos to seemingly esoteric factors as the number of hands dealt per hour, based on an inspection of Rivers Casino<\/strong>. Still he is relatively sanguine, opining that “New York is in the forefront of casinos. I\u2019m looking from the state\u2019s point of view and not from the casino operators\u2019 point of view. Before we had the commercial casinos open, New York\u2019s general income from the racinos surpassed Nevada<\/strong>\u2019s. And Nevada has dozens and dozens of casinos, but New York was taking in more money in the state than all those casinos combined.” He concludes by saying that it’s on Genting Group<\/strong>‘s head to make the most of its five-year window of opportunity with Resorts World Catskills<\/strong> (in other words, get open as soon as you can) and that the state could and should squeeze bit more money from DFS. In short, upstate casinos are yesterday’s news to the two chairmen and they’re on to finding new cash cows to milk.<\/p>\n

* Tech mogul Larry Ellison<\/strong>‘s off-again<\/a>, on-again<\/a> courtship of the Cal-Neva<\/strong> is back in “on” mode. The deal would see Ellison buy the Cal-Neva out of bankruptcy for $36 million. Mind you, the offer is only good through Jan. 10, so let’s cross our fingers and how Ellison gets his wish sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n

* Gambling revenues at Penn National Gaming<\/strong>‘s Plainridge Park<\/strong> rose 5.5% last month, with an astonishing $344\/slot\/day in win. That number is almost certain to take a hit when Wynn Boston Harbor<\/strong> opens so, for Penn, it’s a case of gather ye rosebuds while yet ye may.<\/p>\n

* Speaking of gathering rosebuds, Wakayama<\/strong>‘s chances of winning a Japan<\/strong> casino \"\"improved when the governor of the prefecture reversed his foreigners-only stance on casino admissions. Yoshinobu Nisaka<\/strong>‘s change of heart is conditioned on the imposition of problem-gambling regulations that are\u00a0\u201ceffective and accepted by Japanese citizens.\u201d Let’s face it, at the budgets under discussion, any casino resort that caters only to gaijin<\/em> is a losing proposition, one reason that Wakayama could easily have lost out had Nisaka not changed his mind, or at least taken a more nuanced stance on the issue.<\/p>\n

* Not waiting for the Supreme Court<\/strong> to rule on sports betting, the Michigan House of \"\"Representatives<\/strong>‘ Regulatory Reform Committee<\/strong> has advanced a bill<\/a> that would allow Internet<\/strong> gambling that includes sports wagering. Said sponsor Rep. Brandt Iden<\/strong>\u00a0(R). \u201cThat language is in there to start the next round of conversations. I don\u2019t want us to get ahead of ourselves, but we know that is coming \u2013 the repeal of [the Bradley Act<\/strong>] is likely coming in the spring \u2013 and we want to put Michigan in position to put our best foot forward as it related to sports gaming.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill faces almost-certain opposition from Michigan<\/strong> tribes, who aren’t down with ‘Net-betting. By contrast,\u00a0\u201cthe commercial industry has been good.\u00a0They\u2019re played a pretty active role in the process. They seem to be satisfied with this stage of the game,\u201d says Senate Majority Leader Mike Kowall<\/strong> (R). There’s still the possibility that the language would have to be ratified by the electorate but, so far, it looks like that won’t be needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘Wait three years’ is the new rationale coming out of Albany, now that three new casinos in upstate New York have failed to meet Year One revenue projections. Taking the glass-half-full perspective, state Sen.\u00a0John Bonacic says that the casinos were … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20046,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14,120,37,171,76,112,91,101,69,33,90,111,25,74,31,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20782"}],"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=20782"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32853,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20782\/revisions\/32853"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}