New York backs 3 new casinos, including at Mets stadium and a golf course Trump once ran

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City is poised to get its first Vegas-style casinos, including one next to the home stadium of baseball’s New York Mets and another that could see a windfall for President Donald Trump.

Three casino proposals were approved by a key state panel on Monday for lucrative gambling licenses. No casinos will end up coming to Manhattan, however, as several other competing proposals were already scrapped, including one in backed by Jay-Z in the heart of Times Square.

The state Gaming Commission is expected to formally issue the licenses before the end of the year, as the gambling revenues are already factored into the state budget. Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul praised the projects, saying they could unlock billions for the state’s transit system and create jobs. Opponents warn that easy access to casinos will increase gambling addiction.

Trump could receive $115 million tied to Bally’s $4 billion casino plan at the Ferry Point golf course in the Bronx. Bally’s purchased operating rights for the city-owned golf course from the Trump Organization in 2023 and agreed to pony up the additional money if it won a casino license. The Trump Organization did not reply to an email seeking comment.

In nearby Queens, billionaire Mets owner Steve Cohen proposed an $8.1 billion Hard Rock casino complex on a parking lot of Citi Field, including a performance venue, hotel and retail space. Resorts World proposed investing more than $5 billion to expand its slots parlor into a full casino at Aqueduct Race Track in Queens near John F. Kennedy International Airport with added hotel, dining and entertainment options.

The Gaming Facility Location Board said in its written decision that the region’s dense and relatively affluent population, combined with high tourism, would be able to support three full casinos in close proximity.

Its consultants, using conservative assumptions, estimated the casinos would generate a combined $7 billion in gambling tax revenues from 2027 to 2036, plus $1.5 billion in licensing fees and nearly $6 billion in state and local taxes. However, the board said the projects’ timelines are “ambitious.” The racetrack expansion aims to open some facilities by March, while the Citi Field and golf course projects target 2030 openings.

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. Four full casinos, all upstate, now offer table games. The state also runs nine gambling halls without live table games, many of them also miles away from Manhattan.

Alan Woinski, a New Jersey-based gambling consultant, said the New York City market “should be deep enough” to sustain not just the three planned resort casinos but two other existing slots parlors just outside the city in Yonkers and on Long Island.

He cautioned that early financial projections often fall short, saying he hasn’t seen a casino hit its initial numbers in many years.

John Holden, a business professor at Indiana University who specializes in gambling law, said the market has no national comparison, making projections uncertain. He said he wasn’t surprising the panel recommended all three projects for licenses, given they all have deep resources and expertise.

Anti-casino protesters disrupted Monday’s meeting in Manhattan with chants of “Shame on you! Shame on you!” before they were escorted out.

Jack Hu, one of the group’s organizers, said the proposals will have a disproportionately negative impact in the city’s Asian American communities, which are largely concentrated in Queens. He said casino operators view older Asian adults and workers as merely “cash cows to milk for money.”

“They bus our seniors to casinos, and they give them meal and gambling vouchers in the hopes that they’ll stay long enough to lose their entire Social Security check,” Hu said after the meeting.

The closely watched competition for a New York City license began with a crowded field, with some eight proposals in the running as recently as September. But four of the high-profile plans failed to get the stamp of approval from local advisory boards, automatically knocking them out of contention. MGM abruptly pulled out of the license sweepstakes in October.