In nearly an hour and a half with the Daily News editorial board Tuesday, Gov. Cuomo — with an eye on his own reelection and perhaps past that to 2016 — sounded a bit like a gambler just one roll away from the big score.
“If this passes,” he said of his bid to allow for full-fledged casino gambling in New York, “this is money.”
He all but declared Bill de Blasio’s pre-k tax on the wealthy dead on arrival in Albany next year, when Cuomo and all the members of the Legislature will be up for reelection. “You poll it, they’re going to say ‘yeah, raise the taxes on the rich,'” he said of the likely next mayor’s signature plan, which would need Albany’s approval, shrugging it off as “a campaign program,” not a “governing program,” that would risk chasing some of the rich out of the state.
So, with taxes apparently off the table and Cuomo continuing to “study” frackin g, he’s embraced a different extractive industry: casinos.
Think 2016: Fracking will matter to Iowa Democrats; casinos won’t.
Or, as Cuomo called them, “resort destinations and conference centers.” But, as he said of the 9 racinos (along with 5 native casinos) New York already has to edge around its constitutional ban on gambling, “whatever you want to call them . . . they look and walk like a duck.”
And he’d like more ducks.
Voters will decide on whether or not to amend the state Constitution to allow for up to seven full-service casinos. That, according to the unusual ballot language pushed through in unusual circumstances by the Board of Elections the governor has significant influence over, would go to “promoting job growth, increasing aid to schools, and permitting local governments to lower property taxes through revenues generated” — the equivalent of putting “the best choice” next to a candidate’s name.
Cuomo himself offers a similarly rosy sale, arguing that the camel’s nose is already under the tent, so why not let it in and ride off on it?
“We have more 29,000 electron gaming machines, more than in Atlantic City,” he said. So “it’s not a question of gambling or not gambling. You’re there already. Deal with the reality of where you are. Our point is more they’re not properly regulated, they’re not properly taxed and you’re not distributing the money fairly.”
The amendment voters will decide on (with the slanted language, polls shows that it’s likely to pass, and the gambling industry is reportedly prepared to spend millions if needed to sway the vote) is paired with a law, not before voters, that allows for just four new casinos immediately, none in New York City, with the state revisiting the three remaining slots after seven years.
Then, when that camel’s nose is in, expect a full-service casino in the five boroughs — where the money is. That won’t happen, Cuomo claimed, straightfaced, because legislators don’t want people gambling on their lunch breaks. At the same time, “if you have one in New York City, you diminish the value of the ones upstate.”
Never mind that New York’s racinos already bring more revenue to the state than the take in Nevada and New Jersey combined (because we take a much bigger cut). Or that the Revel in Atlantic City may go bankrupt for the second time in less than two years, or that nearly every surrounding state has gambling now and, since there are only so many suckers to go around, at some point we will either need to create new addicts , or accept declining revenues.
Leaving all that aside, what could go wrong? Giving Albany, which Cuomo has vowed to clean up, a valuable franchise to sell off is like handing a junkie a hit. As Cuomo himself put it, in the past “they basically gave contracts to the politically connected guys,” as with the Aqueduct debacle.
He promised a better, hands-off process this time, with a “world-class competition.”
But promises are cheap, while gambling is lucrative. The industry had more lobbyists in Albany this session than there were legislators, according to the New York Times, and has spent $59 million on lobbying and campaign contributions since 2005, according to Common Cause.
Cuomo himself has collected more than $1 million in campaign money from gambling and horse-racing interests — the most of any New York politician.
To hedge his bet, Cuomo said he’ll increase the number of video machines allowed or even add new racinos if voters reject his plan. So the house wins whatever the people decide.
“We want multi-million dollar resort complexes, we don’t want casinos,” Cuomo said. “We want regional generators in upstate New York.”
But we’re not voting on resort complexes, and wouldn’t need to change the constitution to have them.
As for Cuomo himself, “I don’t gamble. I don’t go into a casino,” he said.
hsiegel@nydailynews.com
