Atlantic Metropolis On line casino Execs Specific Considerations About New York, N.J.
Laborious Rock Worldwide and Caesars Leisure are among the many 10 on line casino corporations readying pitches for one of many three imminent gaming concessions out there in downstate New York.
Laborious Rock Worldwide Chairman Jim Allen speaks on the 2024 East Coast Gaming Congress on the Laborious Rock Resort & On line casino in Atlantic Metropolis. Allen and several other different Atlantic Metropolis on line casino executives say the city’s casinos should improve their choices forward of casinos coming to New York Metropolis. (Picture: East Coast Gaming Congress)
Seven of the 9 casinos in Atlantic Metropolis gained much less cash in individual final 12 months than they did earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic. Laborious Rock owns its namesake resort in Atlantic Metropolis, whereas Caesars manages its namesake property and two different New Jersey casinos, Harrah’s and Tropicana.
Atlantic Metropolis stakeholders are naturally involved with how three Las Vegas-style on line casino resorts in New York Metropolis with slot machines, stay seller desk video games, and sports activities betting will affect the on line casino seashore city. It nearly actually gained’t be to Atlantic Metropolis’s betterment.
Atlantic Metropolis on Excessive Alert
Quite a few on line casino giants along with Laborious Rock and Caesars are anticipated to bid on the New York concessions. The laundry listing of builders able to pony up a $500 million license payment and billions extra into an built-in resort within the Huge Apple embody MGM Resorts, Genting, Las Vegas Sands, Wynn Resorts, Mohegan, Bally’s, the Chickasaw Nation, and Greenwood Gaming (Parx).
Jim Allen, chairman of Laborious Rock Worldwide, says as soon as the three New York casinos open, Atlantic Metropolis’s gaming market might be lowered by greater than 1 / 4 when it comes to annual gaming income.
“We’ve got to be ready for that,” Allen stated this week on the East Coast Gaming Congress at his Laborious Rock Resort & On line casino in Atlantic Metropolis.
Allen says the discount in play will most affect town’s brick-and-mortar backside feeders — Bally’s, Golden Nugget, and Resorts. Whereas Laborious Rock will handle the tighter market, Allen is worried that a number of of these casinos may shut, a improvement that might wash 1000’s of jobs from Atlantic Metropolis.
Caesars CEO Tom Reeg echoed Allen’s worries on Thursday.
I share Jim’s issues about the place the Atlantic Metropolis market is headed as we head into New York,” Reeg stated, including that Caesars is pursuing New York “with fervor.”
Bally’s Chairman Soo Kim stated iGaming — one thing that doesn’t seem more likely to come to New York anytime quickly — will permit his Boardwalk property to stay in enterprise no matter whether or not in-person play additional declines.
“There’s casinos in all places,” Kim stated of the present panorama and gaming choices in Philadelphia, Delaware, Upstate New York, and two New York racinos — MGM’s Empire Metropolis and Genting’s Resorts World.
Upstate New Jersey
Jeff Gural, who runs the Meadowlands Racetrack and the monitor’s extremely worthwhile FanDuel retail and on-line sportsbook, says New Jersey ought to increase on line casino playing north to Bergen County. Gural stays partnered with Laborious Rock for an built-in resort on the Meadowlands ought to a authorized change come to allow casinos outdoors of Atlantic Metropolis.
Gural believes a resort on the Meadowlands would hold some gaming cash within the Backyard State which may in any other case circulation throughout the Hudson River into New York Metropolis. New Jersey voters in 2016 rejected a statewide poll referendum that might have allowed casinos outdoors of Atlantic Metropolis. Gural has stayed on the North Jersey on line casino course however has realized that persistence is essential.
I’m simply ready for New York to open,” Gural informed the Related Press this week about igniting one other on line casino referendum in New Jersey. “Folks will say, ‘Why am I driving over the George Washington Bridge and paying an $18 toll and sitting in site visitors to go gamble?”
An upstate New Jersey on line casino would presumably solely additional damage Atlantic Metropolis. Mark Giannantonio, president of Resorts On line casino Resort and the On line casino Affiliation of New Jersey, says Atlantic Metropolis resorts should proceed to improve their providing to make the beachside vacation spot extra engaging over the following two years earlier than New York casinos open.
“There’s lots of work to do,” Giannantonio summarized.
