Long Wait For Casinos To Get Their New York License
New York decided to amend its laws and allow casinos to operate in the state as the government wanted to boost its economy by tapping the lucrative gambling industry and developing another revenue stream. The state panel finalized on three casino projects back in December 2014 to help create jobs and the respective organizations were confident of setting up operations quickly.
Nearly a year has passed and the state gaming association is yet to approve any licenses for these three gambling establishments. There have been reports that these licenses will be approved by the end of the year but there is very little information to suggest that this will be approved by the end of 2015. The delay has been due to the extensive procedures and red tape that is required for these licenses to be rolled out.
The state gaming commission had taken a lot of time to review the 16 applications that were sent in for a casino license and spent close to 12 months to conduct background checks and verification to finalize on the first three licenses. The state gaming commission gave approval to Rivers casino in Schenectady, Montreign and the Lago Resort and Casino in the Finger Lakes.
Tioga Downs racino in the Southern Tier has also applied for a license to become a casino and its Jeff Gural is already proceeding with breaking ground and making plans to set up his casino as he believes the license is a mere formality.
The other three casinos want to get all their permits in place before proceeding with construction plans and job fairs. Apart from all the red tape, the casinos are also facing opposition from the local community as many believe that the casino industry will have a negative impact on the community. The Lago Resort was forced to shutdown its initial construction plans after a local group decided to file a case against the casino alleging that the approval process was flawed. The local board review the process and once again approved the project but the delay has forced the developers to push their launch date from 2016 to 2017.
Republican state Sen. John Bonacic and chairman of the Senate’s Racing, Gaming and Wagering Committee was not very happy with the long drawn out process in issuing licenses and hoped that the licenses will not be delayed any longer as he believes that the three casino projects will create thousands of construction and permanent jobs that are very essential for New York’s economy.
