BestCraps.com

Genting Gets Green Light for Aqueduct Development

Posted on September 15th, 2010

News Sponsored by Online Vegas Casino

Rated 5 Stars by BestCraps.com

Read Review

Visit Casino

Download Software

————————————————

Atlantic City, one dubbed as the Las Vegas of the East Coast, has primarily been fortunate to find a niche during the 1990s and early 2000s in the area’s gambling market because it did not have any competition back then. During those years, states in New England and the surrounding areas did not approve of casinos. The only competition against the facilities of the Shore was the availability of horse racing tracks which were offering gaming options of a different kind. Thus, everything seemed to be secure and going steady. This was until states surrounding New Jersey started approving the operation of casinos in their area, making it impractical to have to go to Atlantic City just to gamble. Moreover, the economic recession has caused people to hold on to their cash, and thus affect the entire casino industry as a whole. Now, it seems that another nail will be hammered into the virtual coffin of Atlantic City’s worsening fortunes.

The comptroller of the state of New York has finally, on Monday, approved and awarded a license to build and operate a complex for a casino in the Aqueduct Racetrack. The license has been awarded to Genting New York, a subsidiary to Genting Birhad, a firm based in Malaysia that has spearheaded some of Asia’s more luxurious resort projects, such as the Genting Highlands in Malaysia and Resorts World Sentosa in Singapore. This license will last for 30 years and it is estimated that more or less 4,500 video lottery terminals will be installed in the facility, located in the borough of Queens, by the end of next year. Aside from being a threat to Atlantic City, it is said that the addition of gaming options in the Aqueduct will also affect two casinos in neighboring Connecticut, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun. These two casinos have a substantial percentage of gamers from the Empire State.

Andrew Zarnett of Deutsche Bank AG, an avid onlooker of the casino situation, stated, “We believe this is yet another negative for Atlantic City and Connecticut gaming operators as New York residents now have another casino closer to home, [rather] than travel to Connecticut or Atlantic City.” Another analyst, Joseph Weinert of Spectrum Gaming Group L.L.C., a firm based in Linwood, N.J., said that the Aqueduct will surely be a factor in the decrease of the number of customers that Atlantic City has tried to amass for the last 30-plus years. He expects the impact of the Aqueduct faci8lities to at first negligible, but will be bigger once the project operates in full swing. He adds, “We also believe this poses a threat to the Northeastern Pennsylvania casinos, as it attracts patrons from the New York/northern New Jersey market.” The proposal of Genting includes details on the Aqueduct project, which has a first phase that involves the installation of 1,600 state-run VLTs or video lottery terminals. The expected launching date of these gaming terminals is as early as April of 2011. For the second phase, 2,900 more VLTs will be added, with the construction of two parking garages to handle 100 vehicles each, a pedestrian bridge to connect the complex to the subway station and a porte cochere. Hase 2 is said to be finished before 2011 ends.

Genting will now have until Sept. 23 to amass $380 million to be paid to the state as a licensing fee. Genting also has operational facilities in the United Kingdom and won this license after two other bidders for the project backed out of the running. For the part of the New York State Lottery, they have been running VLTS in seven other New York racetracks already. So far the largest operations the State Lottery has is in Yonkers Raceway which has around 5,300 VLTs starting in 2006. Just last week the second of three gambling summits in the Garden State was held, with Governor Chris Christie being accused by leaders of the state’s horseracing industry as being negligent of their plight. Their push to have VLTs in the Meadowlands Racetrack is less favored, as the governor is eying to gain control of the entire gambling operations in Atlantic City. Sen. Paul Sarlo (D., Bergen), opines that Meadowlands needs more facilities ASAP, or it will lose to the Aqueduct. He adds, “This is not just about New Yorkers using these facilities, but convenience gamblers from northern New Jersey counties, especially Bergen County, will flock to Aqueduct,” he said.