New Yorkers Vote on Casino Proposal Today
Whether or not seven new Las Vegas style casino resorts can be built in the state of New York is a major issue on the ballot there on this election day, and according to CDC Gaming Reports, residents of New York City will have big pull owing largely to sheer numbers.
Small voter turnout expected, except in NYC
Part of the reason that New York City is predicted to have major pull in today’s election is because that city will be turning out to select a new mayor for the first time in twelve years, while elsewhere in New York, no major offices are set to be decided.
This means that in upstate areas of the state, voter turnout is expected to be low, whereas New York City voters could represent 42 percent of the overall voter attendance today.
Though the new casino plan allows for the construction of seven land-based casino resorts, it will be many years before the city could see the erection of such a property; the first four would all be built in upstate locations. A New York City casino likely would not be constructed for seven years, if the constitutional amendment on the ballot should pass.
As for the new casinos that would be built in the first wave, according to CDC, “one casino would be in the Southern Tier near Binghamton, two in the Catskills and Mid-Hudson Valley region, and another in the Saratoga Springs-Albany area.”
Adding casinos unlikely to relieve pressures from nearby gaming states
As with almost all plans to expand gambling, both online and off, New York’s casino hopes have caused division in the state, where the proposal has been eyed with especial wariness by the state’s tribal gaming interests. New York currently has five existing casinos, all controlled by Native American tribes, says the New York Times.
The plan to build the new casinos has the powerful support of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who has been touting the proposed constitutional amendment all year as a way of keeping revenue from crossing over borders to other nearby gambling states, particularly Pennsylvania.
In building new casinos, New York could ostensibly prevent some $1 billion from being spent over state lines, according to some estimates.
Jobs also at issue
And while many New Yorkers oppose the casino for the usual suite of reasons – potential upswings in crime and problem gambling among them – there are others who welcome the casinos and the jobs they will bring to regions desperately in need of employment opportunities.
“There’s no big businesses that are coming to the Southern Tier, you know what I mean? But Tioga could be that,” Truman Kittle, resident of Nichols, New York, told The Times, speaking to his support of casino expansion in the state.
