The clock is ticking on New York’s legislative session but a late-arriving bill has been submitted to expedite the licenses for three highly-anticipated downstate casinos.
Let’s take a closer look at the bill and analyze how it might improve the landscape for top-rated sportsbooks in the region.
Legislative Long Shot
The Empire State’s most vocal pro-gambling proponent, Senator Joseph Addabbo, has sponsored S 9673 in a late bid to speed up the process for getting licenses awarded and issued to three downstate casinos. The bill directs the licenses to be awarded by March 31st of next year, which is the last day of the state’s fiscal year.
Addabbo said, “I hope it’s realistic. This is not for show. I don’t want it to be for show. Some of my colleagues have asked why we haven’t realized at least the licensing fees. Hopefully, we can do this. The gaming commission could hold onto these licenses for years and that would be OK because there’s no timeline. So, let’s give them a timeline.”
The impetus for the bill stems from the New York State Gaming Commission’s admission that the licenses may not be awarded until the end of 2025 or even later, despite Governor Kathy Hochul lifting a 2023 moratorium a year early. Addabbo believes there needs to be a hard deadline to drive more concerted efforts in getting the bids awarded.
“It’s just not consistent with the intent of the legislature,” Addabbo said. “When we voted to expedite this by one year, no one in their wildest dreams thought we would be waiting another three, four, five years. These three licenses have been sitting on a shelf, collecting dust, not creating construction jobs and billions of revenue. It’s wrong and there’s no rational reason why.”
There isn’t much time left for Addabbo’s bill to get passed as June 6th is the last day of the legislative session. The senator’s main concern is that the New York State Gaming Commission continues to move the goalposts as to when the licenses will be awarded and feels there needs to be a more concrete deadline that will spur more action and less talk.
“Hopefully it will spur a conversation. At every step along the way for the downstate license, we tried to work with them. People got to start asking the question why? If it’s a land-use issue, let’s get the process started while we work on the land-use issue,” said Addabbo.
iGaming Tied to Licenses
Also included in the bill is a two-year period for winning bidders to resolve land-use issues that are at least partly to blame for the license delays. However, amidst all of the stalled progress is an underlying issue that deals with online casino gambling (iGaming) that has yet to be passed in New York.
“For those who are out there saying we can’t even discuss iGaming until the downstate licenses are done, this will help a little bit. But I would still push for iGaming even before awarding the downstate licenses. The iGaming actually makes downstate licenses even greater because if the license gives access to iGaming, that increases its value.”
Getting the unions and the trade organizations on board would be a boom to his bill and the future of iGaming in the state. “I would hope that Hotel Trades would be on the same page with this bill because they want these union jobs post-construction. This could be an icebreaker with them.”
