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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. You might say Steve Cohen, owner of the Mets, just scored a big win after the humiliating loss, that is the failure of his team to make the playoffs. Cohen bet big on the Mets with the highest payroll in baseball this year. Epic fail. Steve Cohen wants you to be able to bet at a casino he wants to develop right near Citi Field. Here's the breaking news context.

Today was the deadline for votes by the community advisory committees on the casino proposals vying to get one of the three downstate licenses to be awarded by the state this year. There were nine proposals across the five boroughs in Yonkers when this started. The final committee vote just happened for the Steve Cohen proposal for Queens adjacent to Citi Field. It was approved. Nick Garber, politics reporter at Crain's New York Business, has been following the twists and turns of this process and joins us now to talk about this and the other proposals that got enough community support and how the final decisions will be made. Hey, Nick, welcome back to WNYC.

Nick Garber: Hi, Brian, thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we have time for a call or two, I hope. If you live or work in one of the communities that approved one of these casino bids, are you happy about the outcome so far, and how the winnowing process has worked? Call or text us at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. The results seem to be that we've got two expansions of existing betting venues, the racinos in Yonkers and in Queens, plus a new development in the Bronx, a Bally's casino, and now Metropolitan Park, I think it would be called, from Mets owner Steve Cohen, and Hard Rock Entertainment. That's four. I guess there'll be three out of those four that make it in the end?

Nick Garber: That's right, yes. This is all a bit speculative, but we can read the tea leaves to think about which ones are the favorites. Everyone I speak to says that Steve Cohen's bid is strongly favored to win at least one of the three. One of the racinos, Resorts World, is pretty strongly favored to win the second, and then the intriguing part is who gets the third. It's been assumed up until now that the other racino, Empire City in Yonkers, would get it. There's some speculation, since their bid is a little underwhelming, smaller than all the others, that maybe it would go instead to Bally's, which is one of the other brand-new, ground-up bids in the Bronx.

Brian Lehrer: When you look at the four that made it through to the finals and the five that did not, four of them were in Manhattan, and they all got canceled. Hudson Yards, Times Square, a couple of others, one near the UN, and there was a lot of lobbying by the developers. There was a lot of protesting by some community groups. How can you see a pattern in those that got rejected and those that got approved?

Nick Garber: Yes. Certainly, for the Manhattan bids at least, I think you can really attribute it all to the setup of the way the state decided to handle this downstate casino process, which was, as I've written, and I think your colleague Jon Campbell wrote a great story recently, this was all set in motion in 2022 in the state budget when there was a decision to accelerate this timeline for downstate casinos to bring in more tax money for the state.

It was actually Liz Krueger, who's a state senator from the east side of Manhattan, who made the decision to set up these community committees that would have a binding vote, really powerful influence over each of these projects. What we saw with those three Manhattan bids, plus the Hudson Yards one, which actually never even got to submit an application, was just that there was too much local opposition. I think the politicians who had appointments to those boards did not think that, politically, they could conceivably cast votes for these projects, given all the pushback they were getting in their neighborhoods. Then similar situation, I think, in Coney Island, where that bid also went down yesterday.

Brian Lehrer: Here's Ellen in Jackson Heights, who I think is not happy about this Citi Field area casino approval, at least approval to go to the final round of evaluation. Ellen, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Ellen: Hi, Brian, how are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good. You don't like this?

Ellen: I do not like this. I think it's fair to report that many people in Jackson Heights and Corona and Elmhurst don't like it. I also think it's worth reporting that Steve Cohen has outspent his opponents by quite a lot in lobbying efforts. Not only does he have the most expensive roster in baseball, but he has the highest lobbying effort for the casino.

Brian Lehrer: Do you think there would be negative effects in Jackson Heights?

Ellen: Yes, decreased quality of life. Everyone knows that casinos bring in all sorts of crime, and I just think it's a terrible idea.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for your call. Was there, based on your reporting, Nick, less community opposition in the Citi Field area, including extending to Jackson Heights, a few stops away on the 7 train from Citi Field, or would you say that, as the caller asserts, Steve Cohen overwhelmed the process with money?

Nick Garber: Yes. Well, I think that claim is certainly true. He hired, by my last count, 17 different lobbying firms to make the case for this project, which is what you can do when you're a billionaire. Yes, it's hard to say definitively who had the most or least community opposition. I think it was definitely significantly-- There were lots of folks against it, even Cohen's bid.

I think what is the case, though, is these outer borough projects had an easier time making the case that casinos could be an economic development tool that, "Look, I, the developer, am proposing this multibillion-dollar project that will create thousands of jobs, be the first significant investment in this area in a long time." I think that's something that Cohen's people made. That's an argument that Bally's certainly made in the Bronx. It's a much harder argument for a developer in Manhattan to make about Midtown, that this area is depressed and needs economic development. That was just a harder sell for them.

Brian Lehrer: I'm still digesting that stat that you gave a minute ago. Did you say Steve Cohen hired 17? Was it public relations firms to push this forward?

Nick Garber: Lobbying firms, firms that had to register with the state.

Brian Lehrer: Lobbying firms.

Nick Garber: That's probably an undercount because I think his partner, Hard Rock, also hired their own. Then that doesn't even consider all the, as you said, PR communications, public relations firms that didn't have to be publicly--

Brian Lehrer: Did he pay these lobbying firms more or less than he paid Juan Soto?

Nick Garber: [chuckles] Probably less, but he'll make much more from the casino, I think, if it goes through.

Brian Lehrer: Listener writes, "How realistic is Metropolitan Park," that's Citi Field casino, "given that it is located on city parkland that would need to be rezoned?"

Nick Garber: Yes, that was a huge issue for Cohen, but he has it pretty settled. He needed the city and the state to sign off on what's called "parkland alienation," passing legislation to say that these parking lots, which are technically considered part of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, can be alienated, basically privatized, in order to be built on. For a long time, it seemed very unclear whether he would get that permission. The local state senator, Jessica Ramos, announced she wouldn't do it. Then he got this huge lifeline back in March when another state senator, John Liu, announced that he would sponsor that bill. That bill went through. The governor signed it. As far as I know, that issue is totally settled for him.

Brian Lehrer: How about this one from a listener texting from Coney Island? "I am so thankful that the Coney Island bid was rejected," that happened yesterday, "as it would have ruined one of the unique jewels of New York City. For the remaining proposals, the reality is that casinos are no longer where people gamble, particularly for younger generations. It's all done by phone. It's been a sea change even in the short time since the legislation was passed. None of these new facilities will be the economic engine they're promising." What does the evidence say as far as your reporting can tease it out to that speculation?

Nick Garber: I think that's a legitimate claim. I think the strongest evidence so far that the rise of internet gaming might take a chunk out of these casinos is the fact that one of the bidders, Las Vegas Sands, which was going to pursue something out on Long Island in Nassau County, decided a few months ago to drop their bid. They didn't even apply. One of the reasons they gave was, "We're not so sure about the revenue we can make here anymore, given the rise of iGaming." Yes, I think it may well turn out to be the case that these projections were overly rosy. I think that's what happened for some of the upstate casinos that New York legalized a few years ago. The money they ended up producing is not what was expected.

Brian Lehrer: I know people who call or text talk radio tend to be the people with grievances. We deal with that every day, but it's so overwhelmingly negative on our text thread and on our caller board. I could just keep going with people, either enraged that the casinos got approved for their neighborhoods, or so relieved that they didn't for the neighborhoods where they got rejected. Was there any actual grassroots? Were communities divided on these things, or was it just the developers versus community groups?

Nick Garber: Yes, it's hard to say. There are folks who would appear and say, "I'm a nonprofit leader, and I'm supportive of Steve Cohen's bid or Bally's bid." They would swear up and down that they were not receiving any money from the organization. At the same time, it might have just been something more implicit where they hope that here's this wealthy developer showing up, promising to shower this community with money. It would probably be smart for me to get on his side.

I think there is certainly some organic support. If you count elected officials in that, I think some of them made a genuine judgment call that it was a responsible move to greenlight these projects that promise huge amounts of investments in areas that haven't really gotten it before. I think the grassroots opposition was significant to pretty much all of these proposals.

Brian Lehrer: One listener, however, writes, "I feel like I'm the only person screaming against this Bally's casino in the Bronx. The move for them to keep Preston open is to distract from the money they'll owe the Trump Foundation, how close it is to other schools," Preston is a school, a whole other controversy, "and the proximity to Flushing's casino and adding congestion to Ferry Point Park in the Bronx." It sounds like, yes, that person feels like they're on a lonely island. Nick, we've only got 10 seconds. Who will make the final decisions and when?

Nick Garber: It'll be a five-person state board called the Gaming Facility Location Board that's composed of various economic development experts. The chair is a woman named Vicki Been, who is the deputy mayor for housing under Bill de Blasio. They are supposed to make their decisions by December 1st, but it's pretty unclear what that process is going to look like if they're going to be public meetings or what, but--

Brian Lehrer: Will they necessarily choose three? It's a maximum of three. Might they leave some on the table based on three of the opposition?

Nick Garber: That's right. It's possible, yes. If that happened, I think then that one or two or however many licenses would remain up for grabs and we could repeat this--

Brian Lehrer: Nick Garber, politics reporter for Crain's, thanks so much, as Steve Cohen wins around.

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