Rolling the dice on casino plans

Out toward the southeastern edge of Long Island, the Shinnecock Indian Nation is moving toward building a casino on its tribal land, with a Class II Indian gaming license that allows only bingo, slot machines and poker.

Neighbors of the 900-acre Hamptons reservation oppose the casino. So does the town of Southampton, where the reservation sits, and nearby villages, and Suffolk County. That stretch of Montauk Highway is already pretty clogged.

Strong opposition is not unusual for casinos.

What’s unique here: Even the Shinnecocks don’t want it built. Not on their land, and not with anything less than a full-scale operation to include craps, roulette, blackjack and baccarat.

They argue, convincingly, that they deserve a full casino license. That’s what they began seeking even before the tribe’s three-decade quest for federal recognition came to fruition in 2010.

This year may be their best chance to come up big. After a decade of former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo refusing to move forward, Gov. Kathy Hochul is pushing to grant three downstate commercial casino licenses quickly. One of them would hugely help the 1,300 members of the Shinnecock Nation, about half of whom live on the reservation, contend with a past full of governmental disregard and a present stymied by poverty.

STATE FLUSH WITH GAMING

For 12 years the tribe has heard promises of help from politicians that turned into brush-offs. Meanwhile, New York has gone from having no casinos other than four Indian gaming facilities located hundreds of miles north of New York City to being awash in wagering action.

There are already four new Las Vegas-style behemoths upstate. There are nine slot parlors, including Resorts World in Queens and Empire City in Yonkers, and the bustling Jake’s 58 in Islandia.

And there is the mobile sports betting that kicked off this month with such a strong reception that operators immediately began fantasizing about the same customers wagering as dice and cards skip across felt tables.

Competition for the licenses is frantic, even with the fees for obtaining one potentially hitting $1 billion. A state request to gauge interest garnered 30 responses. And although the bidding is supposed to be wide-open, two operators have big advantages.

Hochul’s need for speed, which she justifies as wanting revenue for the state by the time the sugar high of New York’s massive federal COVID-19 aid ends, is becoming justification for giving licenses to Genting’s Resorts World at Aqueduct Racetrack and MGM’s Empire City Casino at Yonkers Raceway.

State Sen. Joseph Addabbo, of Ozone Park in Queens, chairs the Senate gaming committee and wants a full casino at Aqueduct. Assemb. Gary Pretlow, of Mount Vernon, chairs the Assembly gaming committee and wants one at Yonkers. What a coincidence.

Both men support each others’ backyard bid, and say conference leaders are on board. And both men say their districts hold the key to speed: two sites so large, at facilities so prepared to expand, run by gaming companies so adept, that they could be offering full casino games in the time it takes to shuffle up and deal.

WHO GETS THE THIRD?

That presumption shouldn’t be a settled issue, but the expectation is that MGM and Genting, huge lobbying players, will get what they want. And the third license? There will be proposals for Manhattan and Brooklyn casinos, but resistance may be insurmountable. Rockland and Nassau counties are options, but Empire City is awfully close to Rockland, and Nassau couldn’t even site 1,000 slot machines when it tried several years ago.

That leaves Suffolk and, the Shinnecocks hope, their chance.

The tribe’s Class II facility is a threat more than a plan, but after years of delay the promises to put gambling on their own reservation will only be believed when people see them doing it. The tribe has never pressed its own case as aggressively and consistently as it needed to.

But the Shinnecocks have made progress recently, getting more proactive with revenue streams, adding gas stations and huge electronic billboards. They’re also moving toward selling marijuana on their tribal land.

The strongest card the Shinnecocks hold is a federal requirement that the state bargain with the tribe for a full Class III Indian casino in "good faith" if it does not grant them one of the three commercial licenses. The final arbiter of that is the National Indian Gaming Commission, and New York runs a risk that if the state won’t willingly license the Shinnecocks for a commercial location off the reservation and closer to the population density westward, the NIGC will force it to allow a full Class III casino on the reservation.

The tribe has cooperative relationships with the Seminoles, Hard Rock Hotel and Casinos, and developer Tri-State Partners, but how those evolve depends on these licensing battles.

And the tribe has talked to Suffolk OTB, which has made Jake’s 58 hugely profitable and is pursuing one of the three commercial licenses.

But if the Shinnecocks want their full casino, they’ll have to fight for themselves, and others will have to fight for them. And politicians who have stalled and neglected the Shinnecocks have to start helping them.