Mom-and-pop players compete for New York casinos

[hrmjustin]

DAVID KLEPPER

HOWES CAVE, N.Y. (AP) — The contenders vying to build a Las Vegas-style casino in upstate New York include the gambling giants you would expect: Caesars Entertainment, Mohegan Sun, Foxwoods. But there are also a few mom-and-pop players that believe they, too, deserve a piece of the action.

Among them is Howe Caverns, a family-owned roadside attraction that bills itself as the Northeast's largest show cave, with boats that take visitors through the natural catacombs 15 stories beneath the earth's surface. Owner Emil Galasso acknowledges he doesn't know much about running a casino but argues local developers like him should get a chance to deliver an economic boost to the places where they live.

"This is an economically depressed area — just what the law was designed for," said Galasso, whose cave about an hour west of Albany in Schoharie County attracts 150,000 visitors annually. "We have 330 acres that are shovel-ready. We're really a diamond in the rough."

A state constitutional amendment passed last year authorizes as many as seven full-scale, non-Indian casinos. The state is starting with four in three upstate regions: the Catskills and mid-Hudson River Valley, the Albany-Saratoga area or the Southern Tier-Finger Lakes region. No more than two casinos may be located in any single region.

http://www.fltimes.com/news/state/article_0860210f-37af-5bcb-9aca-1bd6c86b626c.html?mode=jqm

[Fred Sanders]

1. How much is the gentleman prepared to pay off to the politicians, is the only issue.

[hrmjustin]

2. Yes indeed because there are about 2 dozen bidders who had to pay one million already

to the state for the privilege to bid and I think the only 7 to 10 casinos tgat can legally be built. I think it is 7.

[Fred Sanders]

3. I wonder if he thought of crowd sourcing the million, for starters. Gambling revenue would be a

crowd pleaser.

[hrmjustin]

4. Possible but I don't know. I think the million is already paid.

The casino expansion ballot passed in NY last year but their was sizable opposition.