Gov. Cuomo has now given his blessing to seven new Las Vegas-like casinos. He did so partly on the grounds that the casinos will help revive New York’s struggling upstate economy.
Count us skeptical.
Under the governor’s blueprint, three regions — the Catskills/Hudson Valley, the greater Capital Region and the Southern Tier/Finger Lakes — would each get a new casino. A private-sector selection committee would then determine the locations for the next four casinos.
Here’s just one hitch. The new casinos depend on voters approving a referendum to expand gambling in New York. If the referendum is held in November, as the governor wishes, it means voters will be asked to approve expansion without knowing where all the new casinos will go.
This newspaper has long been dubious about legalized gambling for New York. Partly that’s because we regard it as a regressive tax, in that gaming tends to make its biggest profits off people who don’t make much money and can least afford to gamble away their paychecks. But we’re also skeptical about the rosy tax revenues promised by gaming proponents.
True, the Cuomo plan gives the state some badly needed leverage over Native American tribes that owe the state $600 million from their own casinos. In the past, whenever governors raised the possibility of entering reservations to collect unpaid cigarette taxes, tribes have hinted at violence.
This time, however, if the tribes don’t pay what they owe, Cuomo could open up their regions to competition from other casinos — costing the tribes far more than the revenues they now owe.
With that threat over their heads, the Oneida tribe struck a deal Thursday agreeing to $50 million in annual payments to the state. Will the Mohawks and Senecas do the same?
But the disputes with tribes hint at our larger objection. Casinos invite corruption in a way normal businesses do not. The reason is that success here is not based on open competition. To the contrary, what makes casinos so highly lucrative is that they are part of a state-sanctioned oligopoly divided up by a privileged few and protected from the open competition every other business faces.
At a time when our fellow citizens upstate are desperate for jobs and economic growth, casinos may be better than nothing. But how much better the opportunities for upstaters would be if, instead of making bets on casinos, their politicians in Albany would do something to change New York’s shameful ranking as the least business-friendly state in the nation.