By Jacob Kaye

The odds keep getting better for the two Queens bidders hoping to score one of the three downstate casino licenses to be handed out by the state’s Gaming Commission at the end of the year.

Just weeks ago, the developers behind Resorts World New York City and Metropolitan Park were competing against six other contenders.

Now, that field has been cut in half.

In the past week, all three of the developers hoping to build casinos in Manhattan saw their proposals go bust after each of their respective Community Advisory Committees voted against the plans, eliminating them from consideration. And now, a proposal to bring a casino to Brooklyn’s Coney Island seems to be doomed to the same fate.

What’s left is a likely four-way race for the three coveted licenses – and Queens is the only borough with more than one viable proposal still on the table.

Among them is Mets owner Steve Cohen’s Metropolitan Park proposal, an $8 billion plan to build a casino and entertainment complex on Citi Field’s parking lot. In addition to the casino, the Metropolitan Park proposal includes plans to build a hotel, several parking garages, a convention center, a live music venue and a food hall. It also would include 25 acres of open space interspersed within the complex.

The other Queens proposal comes from Genting Group, a Malaysian-based conglomerate that owns Resorts World. Genting has pitched a $5.5 billion plan to turn the current racino in South Queens into the largest casino in the United States. Like Metropolitan Park, Resorts World’s expansion would include new hotels, a music venue, restaurants, a convention center and green space.

With only a couple months left in the years-long bidding process, the World’s Borough is now virtually guaranteed a casino and could very well end up with two, making the borough the potential center of New York’s gambling world.

“It’s a very interesting scenario that could be created here,” said Queens State Senator Joe Addabbo, who chairs the Gaming Committee in the Senate and who used to count Resorts World as a constituent.

Addabbo, a leading proponent of the downstate casino push, said Queens’ bids stand out for one particular reason: location.

The borough is home to the city’s two airports and both casino pitches take advantage of that fact. Resorts World is a stone’s throw from John F. Kennedy International Airport, and Metropolitan Park is a little more than a mile east of LaGuardia Airport.

“Location is key to success here,” Addabbo said. “I think it would bode well for both Queens sites.”

Both Resorts World and Metropolitan Park claim their proposals would provide a boost to Queens by keeping tourists who fly into the city in the borough, instead of losing them and their cash to Manhattan.

“They fly to LaGuardia and they take a black car into Manhattan, and they stay in Manhattan,” Cohen’s chief of staff Michael Sullivan told a local Queens community board earlier this year. “We would love for the opportunity to have all these [tourists] fly to LaGuardia and stay at this site…and have Queens economically benefit.”

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, a supporter of both Resorts World and Metropolitan Park who sits on the CAC for both projects, said something similar in January when Resorts World unveiled the details of its proposal for the first time.

“Keep that disposable income in Queens,” he said.

But while Queens’ casino backers have framed their projects as a way to even the playing field among boroughs, Manhattan seems uninterested in playing the game at all.

On Monday, the CAC reviewing a plan to build a casino next to the United Nations voted 4 to 2 against the project dubbed Freedom Plaza, which would have been operated by Mohegan.

That tally mirrored the votes cast by CACs weighing casino plans for Times Square and Hudson Yards.

As a location, Manhattan — with its many hotels and attractions — has its own benefits. But it’s been missing something both Queens bidders have thus far enjoyed – support from local elected officials who hold the key to the CACs approvals.

Each CAC is made up of appointees from the governor, the mayor, the local state senator, the local assemblymember, the local city councilmember and the local borough president. Each proposal needs four votes in approval to be considered for a license by the Gaming Commission.

In all three Manhattan cases, the only “yes” votes came from Governor Kathy Hochul’s or Mayor Eric Adams’ appointees. Not a single member appointed by a local elected official — several of whom appointed themselves — supported the projects.

Such a wholesale rejection from officials isn’t expected from either Metropolitan Park or Resorts World’s CACs.

Resorts World’s CAC includes State Senator James Sanders, Assemblymember Stacey Pheffer Amato, and Community Board 10 chair Betty Braton, who was appointed by Council Speaker Adrienne Adams. It also includes Hochul appointee Stevens Martinez, the deputy director of intergovernmental affairs on Long Island; Adams appointee Nicole Garcia, the Queens borough commissioner for the city Department of Transportation; and Richards, who also sits on the Metropolitan Park committee.

In addition to Richards, Metropolitan Park’s CAC includes Assemblymember Larinda Hooks, Councilmember Francisco Moya, Hochul appointee and deputy director of state operations Gregory Anderson, Adams appointee and director of the Department of City Planning’s Queens office Lin Zeng, and George Dixon, a local district leader appointed by State Senator Jessica Ramos, who is the only elected official to have vocally opposed Metropolitan Park.

Every elected official on Queens’ CACs has at one time or another voiced support for the project they’ve since been tasked with reviewing. Unless any of the officials changed their position on the casino plans during the CACs public review processes, which unfolded over the past month, both Resorts World and Metropolitan Park appear to be headed toward approval.

Resorts World’s CAC is scheduled to vote on the plan on Thursday, Sept. 25. Metropolitan Park’s CAC has yet to schedule their vote but must do so by Sept. 30.

Also yet to vote are the CACs for the Coney Island proposal, a plan from Bally’s to build a casino near the Bronx end of the Whitestone Bridge, and a plan to expand MGM Empire City in Yonkers.

After each of the votes has been tallied, the Gaming Commission will review the proposals approved by the CACs and select three bidders for a gaming license by the end of 2025.