NYC Likely To Get A Casino, Bloomberg Doesn't Object

Gambling only means good things, like clean, well-dressed people with all their teeth having fun! (Yuri Arcurs / Shutterstock)

Now that unemployment and poverty rates are sky high, why not open a few casinos? The Post reports that both parties agree: legalized gambling should happen. It'll give people a chance to ~~discover a new rock-bottom~~ get back on their feet, inject some cash into the state's austere budget, and finally allow us to knock Native Americans out of the one position of power that they currently hold. Everybody wins!

So airtight is Governor Cuomo's plan to approve "Las Vegas-style casinos" everywhere—including in New York City—that he's even convinced Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to go back on his assurance that he wouldn't allow them in the Apple. Silver tells the paper that he would allow for a casino at the Aquaduct Racetrack in Queens. When asked about it today, Mayor Bloomberg said that while he wasn't a gambling man, "I suppose you might have it here." Not that he'll be around to care. And surely developers, the commercial real-estate lobby, casino owners and the Governor will stop at just one.

Republicans killed a casino bill back in 1997, but Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos "is supportive of a constitutional amendment that will let the people of New York decide." Such an amendment would pass the state legislature next year, and hit the ballot in 2013. This gives you plenty of time to brush up on your card counting and fetal position- weeping.

Just last week, the Massachusetts House passed a bill that would plop a casino down on the MA/NY state line, and if it passes the Senate, will provide those revenue streams that Cuomo tells us we're losing to Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. If there's anything to learn from legalizing gambling, it's that it always works. Save your cigarette money for the slots!

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By Christopher Robbins in News on September 19, 2011 2:50 PM

Comments [rss]

destroy_all_humans

This worked great for Detroit :(

ANGRYGOD11

If anyone is concerned the poor locals will be losing their money in a NYC casino, rather than well-off tourists, then why are we talking about putting one in Aqueduct? Keep it in the Manhattan tourist hotel areas, like in European cities do.

James Ryan

I'm picturing Biff Tannen's Pleasure Paradise.

AndySydor

Will there be smoking in the Casinos?

rovingstorm

The impact of casinos on local economies turn on whether they sap of money from poor, local people or rich, out of town visitors. That's why Vegas is a gold mine, Biloxi more of a mixed bag, and frumpy casinos in the middle of nowhere are usually bad news. This being a city where tourists spend a lot of money, I could see a casino working out.

taracorinne

I can attest that those casinos in Mississippi are depressing. Also, they oddly have to be on water due to an old law.

rovingstorm

In Mississippi they actually changed that law in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Now all the main ones are big buildings on land, like any other casino town.
The old boat law was a little ridiculous.

RobertMosesSupposesErroneously

It's about time. I have zero interest in gambling, but banning it as an "immoral vice" seems so Victorian and backwards. If you don't like casinos, don't go.

Dan

Would it be all electronic like Yonkers and tied directly to the State without table games?

Roark

What they are talking about is actual table game casinos - they are already opening up a racino at Aqueduct this October with the video games

Ragingsemi

Most likely, they'll find some way to ruin it.

FU Boy

Yeah, gambling always works. Just look at the lucrative OTB!

ANGRYGOD11

OTB had massive staff with brick-and-mortar overhead AND gave up too high a percentage to the horsetracks to survive.

FU Boy

Hence my comment about how profitable it can be!

ktinnyc

What's wrong with gambling? Look at the Eden that is Atlantic City.

LtWorf

I can't run my own game in my basement, but the state can open a casino nearby and tax my shit?

I don't think so. I'd rather head to Vegas.

ANGRYGOD11

Unless your head is bulletproof, running your own game at home doesn't sound like a good idea.

ktinnyc

There is nothing illegal about running your own game unless you take a rake. Home games are aren't against the law.

BottomlessChips

I'm all for this. Adults should be able to gamble.

But I'd like to point out that the anti-smoking laws are to protect us...to protect us from second-hand smoke and protect the smoker's health...or so says Bloomberg. Yet, he's (meekly) behind one of the most addictive vices known to man in NYC. A vice which can destroy a person AND the person's family.

Or is this all about tax revenues?