An explainer
At first blush, casinos and New York seem like a strange marriage. New Yorkers like to be on the go. Nights out in the Big Apple can mean dinner and a Broadway show, seeing a concert at an underground venue, dancing at a downtown nightclub or any of the thousands of other options. Do we really need casinos on top of all that? Casinos lure people indoors, plying them with free drinks to keep them gambling for hours or until they run out of money.
Yet a handful of resorts are now set to open here by the end of the decade. In 2022, legislators voted to allow state officials to award as many as three new casino licenses in the New York metropolitan area, the most lucrative market in the region if not the nation.
An intense campaign that rivaled an electoral primary soon followed. Many of the city’s most prominent developers partnered with multinational gaming companies, renowned architects and high-priced political consultants to prepare their resort proposals and convince New Yorkers to support them.
Some proposals withered under scrutiny and were never presented publicly. Others have been rejected by community leaders appointed by state and local elected officials. By the end of the year, a state panel could decide to dispense new licenses in the five boroughs to the remaining bidders. If three of the bids meet the state’s criteria, there could be three new casinos in the city. If none of them pass muster, then there won’t be any new resorts.
Contentious as it has been, it has not been an easy process to follow. But with billions of dollars in future profits (and losses) at stake, it’s worth taking a closer look at why the city’s political, real estate and consultant class has had gambling fever.
Why are we building casinos at all?
Developers have wanted to open more casinos in New York for many years. In 2013, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo drafted a ballot referendum to amend the state Constitution to allow seven new full-scale casinos, arguing they would create jobs and revitalize the state’s economically depressed areas.
Voters passed the amendment with 57% of the vote. But the law only authorized the state to award four licenses for sites upstate — while establishing a 10-year moratorium for resorts in New York City, Long Island and Westchester County.
By 2022, state legislators included a measure in the state budget that ended the downstate moratorium, allowing the state to begin awarding new licenses a year early.
Don’t we already have casinos?
Before 2013, the state had five Native American-run casinos, which are allowed under a completely different legal regime, and nine slot machine parlors at racetracks, known as “racinos.”
These aren’t casinos, but they look a lot like them. Under a quirk of New York law, the state has sponsored and subsidized horse races — on which spectators can bet — since 1899. Those included Yonkers Raceway just to the north of the city and Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens.
On their properties, developers bent but didn’t break the law by opening up gambling halls that look and feel a lot like casinos.
The gaming hall at a racino features the same games at a casino, such as blackjack, craps and poker, but on video screens rather than run by human dealers. Thus, the law technically allows them as being tantamount to the fully-by-chance lottery — not gambling as defined in the state Constitution. The distinction may not make much sense, but it has held up in court.
Is there any demand for more casinos in New York?
Developers and gaming companies certainly think there is, but it’s complicated.
The nation’s casino gambling market is expected to rise from $76 billion in 2024 to $126 billion by 2033 due to the expansion of sports betting, new resorts and online casinos, according to a 2025 report.
Much of that growth has been due to mobile sports betting, a market New York leads the nation on by a wide margin. The state brought in $1.7 billion in mobile sports revenue in the 2024 fiscal year, comprising 15% of the nation’s total sports revenue. Last month, the state recorded $2.6 billion in online sports wagers, the highest monthly total ever recorded in the country.
But it’s unclear whether the demand for online betting will transfer to a physical resort, much less three, in New York City.
Some industry leaders believe the northeast’s casino market is already saturated and the presence of new attractions downstate could threaten those upstate and in suburban New Jersey and Connecticut. Only one of New York’s upstate casinos has surpassed its annual revenue projections, while taxes paid by New York’s casinos and racinos have fallen by 9% since 2019, the New York Times reported. On the other hand, it’s possible that there are more than enough high-rollers and tourists — and lower-income problem gamblers, who tend to make casinos most of their money — to make this a winning bet.
Who awards casino licenses and how do they determine who will win?
Once the Legislature approved the expansion of casinos, it set off a complicated approval process.
The New York State Gaming Commission started the process of awarding new licenses.
The commission — whose members are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the State Senate — appointed five board members to something called the Gaming Facility Location Board, which has the responsibility of issuing the request for new casino applicants, leading hearings, setting license fees and assessing the winners. Its chair is former New York City deputy mayor and NYU Law Professor Vicki Been.
Under the law, each application gets a point-based score across multiple criteria. The most weight is placed on a proposal’s “economic activity,” which includes capital investment, revenue projections, job creation, and how fast it can open (adding up to 70% of its score), followed by its impact on the community, workforce enhancements and diversity goals (each 10% of its score).
That’s not the only level of approval. Some bidders may need to get the City Council to approve a rezoning or a street demapping or the state legislature to allow public parkland to be alienated for their site to become a gaming resort.
Once casino bidders submitted their proposals on June 27, 2025, the state convened local panels called Community Advisory Committees (CAC), comprising six members appointed by the mayor, the governor, and state and city elected officials from the neighborhood where the proposed casino would be located.
If an applicant receives four or more votes from the CAC, they advance to be evaluated by the Gaming Facility Location Board. Those that don’t get two-thirds of the vote end their bids.
Who are the leading contenders and where do they want to build?
There were 11 publicly announced proposals to develop casinos, but only eight were submitted to the state and just four advanced past the local CAC round.
Two of the four are new construction projects. Metropolitan Park, a joint venture between Mets owner Steve Cohen and Hard Rock Entertainment, plans to convert a 50-acre Citi Field parking lot in Corona, Queens, into a $8 billion resort district with hotel, food hall, 3,000 parking spaces, and 25 acres of parkland.
Bally’s Bronx, owned by Bally’s Corp, hopes to turn part of the city-owned golf course at Ferry Point Park in Throggs Neck, the Bronx, into a $4 billion entertainment complex with a 500-room hotel, a new event center, and 4,660 parking spaces.
The other two bids are renovations of existing racinos. The Genting Group is seeking a $5 billion expansion of its Resorts World facility, which will include a new gaming floor, hotel and conference space, while also converting the now-defunct Aqueduct Race Track into a 50-acre park. MGM Resorts wanted to invest $2.3 billion to upgrade Empire City in Yonkers with a new sportsbook lounge, entertainment venue and restaurants — but it unexpectedly withdrew its bid in October after learning from the state they would only qualify for a 15-year license instead of a 30-year license.
That means that the three remaining applicants are within 15 miles of each other along the Van Wyck Expressway.
Which sites have been ruled out?
All five Manhattan-based proposals as well as bids in Brooklyn and Nassau County have already been scratched from contention.
The most prominent Manhattan sites included SL Green’s Caesars Palace Times Square, a $4 billion skyscraper at 1515 Broadway in Midtown, The Soloviev Group’s Freedom Plaza in Murray Hill, and Related Companies’s Hudson Yards West on the Far West Side.
All were splashy, high-profile concepts, but they didn’t pass muster.
Both the Caesars Palace and Freedom Plaza proposals were rejected by their CACs this fall, while Hudson Yards West was pulled before the vote could occur. Thor Equities’ The Coney in Coney Island was also voted down by its CAC this fall. Resistance hinged on concerns about increased traffic, rising rents and competition for neighborhood small businesses.
How much tax revenue could the remaining bids raise for the state?
Casino economics are famously dicey, with owners promising a boon but often failing to consider the very real downsides. Resorts World is promising $4 billion in gaming revenue annually after proposing a 56% tax rate for its slot machines and a 30% rate for its table games (each bidder must include their proposed tax rates in their application).
Hard Rock estimates it would generate $3.9 billion in revenue each year while proposing the state’s minimum 25% tax rate for its slots and 10% for its table games.
Bally’s believes it will raise $1 billion in tax revenue for the state. The company did not make its proposed tax rates public.
What happens now that the bids have been submitted?
The state Gaming Facility Location Board is currently reviewing the three remaining applications. It is expected to make its recommendations for awarding casino licenses by December 1. Finally, the State Gaming Commission would ratify that decision by determining the criteria for earning a license are met by December 31.
How fast could these casinos potentially open?
Resorts World promised to add 250 live table games and 4,000 slot machines into its existing gaming hall by the middle of 2026. Then it would embark on the second phase of its expansion, with 6,000 slot machines and 800 table games — which it says it would complete by 2030.
Hard Rock anticipates starting construction on Metropolitan Park in January and expects to open in June 2030. Bally’s also hopes to open by 2030.
What do the city’s current and future leaders think of casinos?
The governor and mayor don’t have any direct say in the process at this point, but their opinions matter. Gov. Hochul has been strongly involved in the casino expansion effort; she pushed legislators to lift the moratorium a year early in 2022. Her appointees on local CACs have supported casino proposals. She also vetoed a bill last year that would have pushed up the deadline to submit proposals by a year.
Mayor Adams, who got caught up in a scandal to help bring gambling to Aqueduct Racetrack when he was in the state Senate, enthusiastically supported all of the casino bids and his appointees on the CACs have voted in favor of advancing them. His office released an analysis of the economic benefits of seven applications this fall. And he helped Bally’s by vetoing a City Council vote that had blocked zoning changes to the area, preventing the Bronx bid from moving forward.
“Casinos can bring jobs. It can bring stability, tourism,” Adams said in September after the Freedom Plaza bid was rejected. “So I was surprised at some of the negative votes. Let the final process make the decision. We should not be stopping them at this local level.”
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has been skeptical of the value that casinos bring to their communities — but he said he would not try to stop their expansion.
“I’ve been open about my personal skepticism, and yet I also know this is the law,” he told the New York Times in August. “The siting and the choices of which casinos will open, that pertains to the state.”
Has there been any corruption in the bidding process?
That’s been harder to detect. Casinos are famously linked to ethical shenanigans — just look at the history of mafia involvement and other bad business practices in Las Vegas and Atlantic City.
How about here and now? Yonkers officials called for a state investigation into why MGM abruptly rescinded its casino expansion bid. But the company may have made its decision based on its evaluation of the potential costs and the high level of competition.
Bally’s arrangement with the Trump Organization, brokered by Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, has certainly raised eyebrows. The president’s company sold its contract to operate the Bronx golf course to Bally’s in 2023 for $60 million. But the deal included a provision that the Trump Organization would collect another $115 million if Bally’s ultimately won a casino license.
Several people close to Mayor Adams, whose Council veto this summer kept the proposal alive, including his former chief of staff Frank Carone and campaign attorney Vito Pitta, worked on the Bally's bid (Bally’s told New York Magazine they did not influence the mayor’s veto decision).
Perhaps the lasting image of the casino process is from SL Green CEO Marc Holliday, who would have earned a $10 million bonus if his Times Square casino opened. Instead, the Midtown CAC denied his bid in a 4-2 vote.
“Go run and hide! Because what you did, the benefits you denied this community, and this city and state, you have to live with that history forever,” he said.