Always dubious, the claim that new casinos would work miracles for New York’s economy took another blow this week — with news that three gaming joints set to open soon upstate are relying on millions in local tax breaks.
The Democrat & Chronicle reports that the three casinos — in the Southern Tier, Finger Lakes and the Catskills — will be getting juicy sales-, mortgage- and property-tax reductions to win vital funding and actually be profitable. “It was impossible to finance Tioga Downs” without the breaks, says owner Jeff Gural. “It’s a miracle” his project is “getting built at all.”
Hah! Casinos were sold as an economic boon when voters approved them in 2013: Upstate residents and governments would soon be rolling in dough. The part about needing taxpayer handouts got left out.
Even the remaining hope that casinos will create jobs and boost other area businesses assumes that droves of bettors will flock in. What if they don’t?
Look at Atlantic City: Thanks to competition from new gambling complexes across the region, it’s lost 11,000 jobs since 2014, and the city itself is teetering on bankruptcy.
Gov. Cuomo and his team refuse to embrace the far wiser course: ease state regulations and taxes. Instead, they’ve made conditions worse — by, for example, forcing up labor costs with a far higher minimum wage. (Not to mention that fracking ban.)
Are they that blind to the hardship they impose — or don’t they care?