New York City is at an inflection point in the long and drawn-out “beauty pageant,” as one observer put it, to award three downstate casino gaming licenses by year’s end, with billions of dollars, thousands of jobs, and uncharted opportunities hanging in the balance. Some of the proposals have already garnered ardent opposition.
“ This is the biggest potential development probably since Hudson Yards in the city of New York,” said Evan Stavisky, president of the lobbying firm Parkside Group, which worked with Las Vegas Sands on a since-withdrawn casino bid and is not affiliated with any of the eight pending proposals. “People in the gaming industry are waiting with bated breath.”
