{"id":57518,"date":"2025-12-01T19:29:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T19:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/57518\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T19:29:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T19:29:07","slug":"new-york-city-backs-casinos-in-queens-and-the-bronx-that-would-benefit-billionaire-steve-cohen-and-maybe-even-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/57518\/","title":{"rendered":"New York City backs casinos in Queens and the Bronx that would benefit billionaire Steve Cohen and maybe even Donald Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York City is poised to get its first Vegas-style\u00a0casinos<\/a>, including one next to the home stadium of baseball\u2019s New York Mets and another that could see a windfall for President\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They were among three casino proposals approved for lucrative\u00a0gambling licenses<\/a>\u00a0on Monday by a key state panel. No casinos will end up coming to Manhattan, however, as several other\u00a0competing proposals<\/a>\u00a0were already scrapped, including one in the heart of Times Square.<\/p>\n

The state Gaming Commission is expected to formally issue the licenses before the end of the year, as the gambling revenues are\u00a0already factored<\/a>\u00a0into the state budget. Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul said the casinos promise to unlock billions of dollars in funding for the state\u2019s transit system.<\/p>\n

Bally\u2019s plan to spend $4 billion building a casino at the\u00a0Ferry Point golf course<\/a>\u00a0in the Bronx could mean millions of dollars for Trump. When the company purchased the city-owned golf course\u2019s operating rights from the Trump Organization in 2023, it promised to\u00a0pony up another $115 million<\/a>\u00a0if it won a casino license. Spokespersons for the Trump Organization did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.<\/p>\n

In nearby Queens, billionaire New York Mets owner Steve Cohen has proposed building a\u00a0$8.1 billion<\/a>\u00a0Hard Rock casino on a parking lot of Citi Field. The complex would include a performance venue, a hotel and retail and shopping space.<\/p>\n

Resorts World, meanwhile, has proposed investing\u00a0more than $5 billion<\/a>\u00a0to expand an existing slots parlor into a full casino at the Aqueduct Race Track, which is also in Queens near John F. Kennedy International Airport. It too would add hotel, dining and entertainment options.<\/p>\n

Vicki Been, chair of New York Gaming Facility Location Board, said the panel believed the New York City market was \u201cplenty strong\u201d enough to sustain three casinos, despite their close proximity.<\/p>\n

She said the three projects would generate roughly $7 billion in gambling revenues over a 10-year span. The projects would produce more than $5 billion more in other tax revenues and other community benefits, including public safety investments and public transit and roadway improvements, Been said.<\/p>\n

A group of anti-casino protesters chanted \u201cShame on you! Shame on you!\u201d as they were escorted out of the meeting at the CUNY Graduate Center in midtown.<\/p>\n

Jack Hu, an anti-casino organizer, said afterward that the proposals would have a disproportionately negative impact in the city\u2019s Asian American communities, which are largely concentrated in Queens.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur seniors and working people have long been dehumanized by casino operators, treated as cash cows to milk for money,\u201d he said, backed by other opponents holding protest signs outside the building. \u201cThey bus our seniors to casinos, and they give them meal and gambling vouchers in the hopes that they\u2019ll stay long enough to lose their entire Social Security check.\u201d<\/p>\n

The commission is authorized to license up to three casinos in the New York City area after voters approved a referendum back in 2013 opening the door to casino gambling statewide.<\/p>\n

Since then,\u00a0four full casinos<\/a>\u00a0with table games have opened in New York, but all of them are located upstate, miles away from Manhattan. The state also has\u00a0nine gambling halls<\/a>\u00a0offering slot machines and other electronic gambling machines, but no live table games.<\/p>\n

The closely watched competition for a New York City license began with a crowded field, with some\u00a0eight proposals<\/a>\u00a0in the running as recently as September.<\/p>\n

But four of the high-profile plans failed to get the stamp of approval from local advisory boards, automatically knocking them out of contention.<\/p>\n

Among the most notable was a Jay-Z-backed plan to build a\u00a0Caesars Palace in Times Square<\/a>, as well as two other resorts proposed in central Manhattan.<\/p>\n

Then in October,\u00a0MGM abruptly pulled out<\/a>\u00a0of the license sweepstakes, saying the \u201ccompetitive and economic assumptions underpinning\u201d their plans had changed. The Las Vegas casino giant had planned a major expansion of the Empire City Casino, a slots parlor located at the Yonkers Raceway north of Manhattan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City is poised to get its first Vegas-style\u00a0casinos, including one next to the home stadium of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[3968,1459,153,9,24,63,122,124,123,3929],"class_list":{"0":"post-57518","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-billionaires","9":"tag-casinos","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-nyc","14":"tag-queens","15":"tag-queens-headlines","16":"tag-queens-news","17":"tag-steve-cohen"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}