Planned New York casinos not to everyone's liking

A proposal seeking one of New York's three casino licenses would include a massive Ferris wheel near the United Nations headquarters in Midtown Manhattan with a mostly underground casino.

While that and other proposals for casinos in New York may hold the prospect of rich pickings for the gambling industry, not everyone in the state is keen on the plans.

Another proposal would convert the top three floors of Saks Fifth Avenue's flagship department store in Fifth Avenue into a "luxury, high-end casino". The project will cover about 18,600 square meters, including a new lobby with a separate entrance for the casino, said Hudson Bay, the owner of the Saks Fifth Avenue department store chain.

The proposal with the Ferris wheel is the latest bid for one of the three licenses for Las Vegas-style casinos in New York, which would include live table games and slot machines.

Tax revenues

Experts say three downstate casinos could together generate an estimated $4.4 billion in gross gambling revenue. Lawmakers have projected billions of more dollars in regular tax revenues, which are expected to be invested into the state's public schools, local governments and gambling-addiction treatment services.

Gambling companies and real estate developers that have announced casino proposals are mostly focused on Manhattan sites, including Times Square, Penn Station and Hudson Yards. There are proposals for locations in Coney Island in Brooklyn, and in Queens and Nassau County on Long Island.

The casino proposals for Manhattan have drawn resistance from some lawmakers, local businesses and residents.

The Broadway League, which represents theater owners, has said that a casino in Times Square "would bring deep economic and social disruption" to the area.

There is also a question about how the New York city-area casinos could affect struggling upstate casinos, whether they would siphon revenues or lead to the closure of any of 11 Las Vegas-style venues, seven of them run by Native American nations.

The Wall Street Journal quoted Michael Pollock, managing director of Spectrum Gaming Group, a nonpartisan consultancy that specializes in the economics, regulation and policy of legalized gambling worldwide, as saying: "New York City, for a whole host of obvious reasons, is the single-most important, unclaimed prize in gaming … because of its New York City brand, because of its population, its disposable income, its existing tourism infrastructure."

Agencies contributed to this story.