Since her appointment in October 2021, New York State Inspector General Lucy Lang has been tasked with investigating complaints against the New York Gaming Commission. Lang reported a surge in complaints against the regulator in August.
In an interview with The Capitol Pressroom radio show on November 7, Lang talked about an increase in incoming complaints against the gambling industry in light of the rapidly evolving nature of gambling in the state.
“We are only in the early days of understanding what the [industry] trends look like… in part because of the recent developments around mobile sports betting and the potential for fraud and abuse in that area. I expect we’ll see increasing patterns as the [gambling industry] continues to integrate into the state,” she said.
The Office of the Inspector General has adopted a range of measures to increase transparency and trust in the office, including making previously private data available to the public, publishing its recommendations to operators, and improving its anonymity protocols for complaints.
“We know that the traffic to our open data portal has been voluminous… our data sets have been downloaded hundreds of times. New Yorkers are doing exactly what we hoped they would: taking our data… and trying to better understand the work we do,” Lang said.
New York is in the process of awarding three commercial casino licenses in downstate New York, raising concerns of a repeat of the so-called Aqueduct Casino Scandal, when the New York State Inspector General revealed that State Senate leaders manipulated the selection of who would install slot machines at the state’s first casino, at the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens.
The Inspector General’s report into the Aqueduct Scandal in 2010 concluded that State Senators may have violated laws for governing public officials. The report said that the selection process, which led to a consortium called the Aqueduct Entertainment Group receiving the contract, was without formal rules or objective criteria.
It also accused the process of being subject to “unrestrained political considerations,” lobbyists, and targeted campaign contributions. The awarding of the license to Aqueduct was revoked after the investigation and awarded to international gambling operator Genting, but the matter was later subject to a 2013 federal investigation.
Lang revealed that the learning process in the aftermath of the Aqueduct affair is helping to inform how New York State and its Gaming Commission approach the allocation of these casino licenses. “One of the first people I connected with upon taking office was Judge Joseph Fisch, my predecessor from some time ago, who oversaw the investigation into Aqueduct. The way we are thinking about [the casino bidding process] now, knowing what we know based in part on that history, is that prevention [of corruption] is absolutely key.”
“As of this week, our staff have trained every member of the gaming commission, we have been on the ground in casinos, off-track-betting facilities, and racetracks, talking to people at all levels to inform them of their ethical obligations in terms of state law, reminding them we are available as a state resource, and that we will protect anonymous complaints and investigate everything to the fullest of our ability.”
Lang’s approach to preventing corruption, fraud, and abuse in the casino industry takes three forms, each of which helps to reduce its potentially harmful effects. Through transparency, improving complaints procedures, and learning from previous issues around licensing, the State’s Inspector General hopes to create a more open and better-functioning casino industry and regulatory apparatus.
