The New York State Gaming Commission will hold a Monday meeting that is expected to finalize the approval for all three full-scale NYC casino sites. The meeting will take place at the Robert F. Smith Center for the Performing Arts at Denny Farrell Riverbank State Park in Manhattan. It will also be livestreamed. State officials said on the agenda will be the consideration of gaming facilities licensing for the locations that were approved by its Location Board on Dec. 1.
Resorts World New York City has submitted its supplemental application to the New York State Gaming Facility Location Board, which required applicants to submit material such as projected tax revenue before the Oct. 14 deadline. In major news, MGM Resorts announced that it was withdrawing its application to expand its Empire City "racino" in Yonkers ahead of the deadline, leaving just three bids competing for up to three commercial casino licenses.
MGM unexpectedly withdrew its casino bid on Tuesday, whittling down the competition for the three coveted licenses in downstate New York to just, well, three. The company, which owns the Empire City Casino and Yonkers Raceway, claimed that the abrupt about-face was a financial calculation: The apparent return on building a full-blown casino at a cost of $2.3 billion didn't look as good as it did when the company submitted its proposal in June. "The competitive and economic assumptions underpinning our application have shifted," MGM said in a statement.
Five out of six members of the local advisory committee voted in favor to approve Bally's Bronx at Ferry Point Park, the site of a golf course once operated by the Trump Organization. If the project is awarded a casino license, Bally's Bronx would have to pay $115 million to the Trump Organization as part of an agreement the two groups made in 2023. That is on top of the $60 million that Bally's already paid to buy the rights to operate at the location.
Bally's proposed $4 billion waterfront complex in Soundview's Ferry Point Park includes a hotel, restaurants, retail shops, and a 2,000-person event center, enhancing the Bronx's economic development.
