With New York State’s 2008 budget deadline looming, the group International Racing Management has repeated its call for Capital Play Inc. to get the contract to run Aqueduct Racetrack’s gaming facility.
Aqueduct is slated to get 4,500 video lottery terminals that are expected to generate $451-million in annual gross revenues.
The state’s budget deadline is April 1 and Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno said Thursday that staff would work through the weekend to reach that goal. For the Thoroughbred racing industry, the fate of downstate New York gaming is one of the most important aspects of budget negotiations.
A Senate budget bill and the executive budget proposed by former Governor Eliot Spitzer both call for gaming at Belmont Park, in addition to Aqueduct. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) says VLTs should be restricted to Aqueduct only.
International Racing Management, whose stated mission is to attract new owners to the industry, shares a similar view. It contends that VLTs would detract from Belmont’s historic character.
In an open letter to new Governor David Paterson, IRM President Pamela Stokes Donehower on Thursday, urged the state to let Capital Play Inc. develop Aqueduct as a destination resort with hotels, restaurants, shopping and high-end entertainment, in addition to gaming.
“Aqueduct’s location, adjacent to JFK Airport, provides a unique opportunity to shine the light on live Thoroughbred racing, which Capital Play and its international partnership consortium [including Australia’s Victoria Racing Club] have pledged to do,” she said. “Capital Play’s commitment to put racing first and to partner with [the New York Racing Association] and horsemen from around the globe, provides new opportunities for focused efforts to ensure that New York racing will continue to be appreciated—and wagered on—as the best in the world.”
Capital Play is allied with Connecticut’s Mohegan Sun, one of the country’s most successful gaming operations.
“Capital Play’s offering presents a marvelous opportunity for us all to work together to create not only a 'waiting room for JFK,' but an entertainment destination for the entire metropolitan area that will exponentially increase revenue streams for our state and municipalities,” Donehower said.
In February, when legislation allowing for NYRA’s new 25-year franchise was approved, state leaders said Aqueduct’s gaming operator would be named within 30 days. That decision, however, has been sidetracked by Spitzer’s resignation in the wake of a shocking sex scandal, and the more high-priority state budget process.
Bruno and some leading trainers, such as Gary Contessa, want gaming at both downstate tracks. Revenues from both sites is needed to keep New York competitive with other states, they argue.
Bruno has said that Capital Play and New York-based SL Green Realty Trust, a real estate investment company, are the only two groups under consideration for the Aqueduct gaming contract. Last fall, however, six groups submitted bids.
Paterson’s office has declined comment about the number or identity of groups still seeking the contract, drawing sharp criticism about a perceived lack of transparency in the selection process.
“Contents of the bid have never been disclosed,” said Bennett Liebman, head of Albany Law School’s Racing and Wagering Law Program. “Nobody even knows who’s bidding any more. We don’t know because transparency has been absent.”
Paul Post is a New York-based Thoroughbred Times correspondent
