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The Seneca Nation has informed a Monroe County legislator and the town of Henrietta in a letter that it is no longer interested in a casino in the town.(Photo: Michael Blann Getty Images)

ALBANY – Sixteen proposals vying for four casino licenses in New York will be presented Monday and Tuesday before a state panel that will make the picks this fall.

And despite a struggling casino sector nationally, developers said the market isn't saturated in upstate New York. The four licenses will go in three regions: the Albany area, Catskills/Hudson Valley and Southern Tier.

Some of the largest players in the industry are betting on New York, including Mohegan Sun, Caesars and Genting.

"We feel very strongly that there's room for additional casinos here in New York," said Thomas Wilmot, a Rochester-area developer, who is proposing a casino in the Finger Lakes. "I don't think there's any doubt that New York could handle another four casinos."

But there are skeptics who believe New York's casinos won't become the economic driver and tourism draw that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has envisioned.

Atlantic City recently closed four of its 12 casinos, and the Northeast casino market is nearly saturated with 51 casinos, including 11 in Pennsylvania. Three are planned for Massachusetts.

In June, Moody's Investment Services gave the industry a negative outlook. And for the first five months of this year, seven of New York's nine racetracks with video-lottery gaming had a drop in revenue. New York also has five Indian-run casinos.

"Clearly New York is getting into the market late," said Richard McGowan, a Boston College economics professor who studies casino gambling. "So the primary thing they are doing is trying to reclaim revenue from other states."

The state's Gaming Facility Location Board is holding the two days of hearings near the Capitol to receive one-hour-long presentations on the 16 casino bids from the 15 developers. Resorts World, owned by Genting, a company that runs the massive video-lottery facility at Aqueduct Raceway in Queens, has two proposals for Orange County in the Hudson Valley.

The board will then hold three public hearings: Sept. 22 in Albany, Sept. 23 in Poughkeepsie and Sept. 24 in Ithaca.

Voters last November approved allowing seven privately owned casinos in New York. The state Legislature and Cuomo, though, agreed to give the first four licenses in the three regions north and west of the New York City area and outside the areas dominated by Indian-run casinos in western, northern and central New York. Cuomo and the tribes reached revenue-sharing deals in exchange for the gambling exclusivity.

It'll be at least five years before the state will award the remaining three casino licenses -- presumably in the New York City area.

Cuomo has dismissed questions about whether four casinos in New York could thrive. He said that's the private sector's concern.

"I'm sure they will propose what they believe will be successful," Cuomo told reporters last month. "The state isn't building any casinos. The state isn't spending any money here. These are private companies which normally know what they're doing."

But the state is banking on the casinos to boost its coffers and aid local governments, as well as infuse thousands of jobs into areas with among the highest unemployment rates in New York.

And even though the casinos will be limited to three regions, where within those regions the casinos are located will have major implications for the state and the existing gambling facilities.

Wilmot's proposal is in the Finger Lakes, instead of in the Southern Tier — where there are proposals to put casinos near Binghamton and at Tioga Downs, currently a racetrack with video-lottery terminals. Finger Lakes Gaming and Racetrack, a video-lottery facility, is just 30 miles from Wilmot's Seneca County proposal.

Similar uncertainty rests in the Hudson Valley and Catskills.

Nine proposals are in the Catskills/Hudson Valley area, and six of them are in Orange County. A project in Tuxedo, Orange County, by Genting would be just 40 miles from Manhattan.

The general belief is that the region will get two of the four licenses because it can draw from the 23 million people who live in the New York metropolitan area. The casinos in the Albany and Southern Tier areas would largely be regional attractions, luring in people who live within a roughly 50-mile radius.

Critics have questioned whether putting a casino in Orange County would go against the state's goal: to build casinos in struggling upstate areas. The Catskills were once a prime tourist area for New York City residents, but has foundered, while Orange County is more affluent.

Already, two proposals for Sullivan County in the Catskills have dropped out, saying they couldn't compete with Orange County casinos that would be closer to New York City.

Only two plans for Sullivan County remain, along with one for Ulster County. And the two in Sullivan are adjacent to each other on the former site of the Concord Hotel.

Mitchell Grossinger Etess, Mohegan Sun's CEO, said its proposal for a Sullivan County casino would be hindered if there's also one in Orange County.

"You'll not put a successful casino in Sullivan County that's successful enough to drive the economic benefit if there's a casino in Orange County," Etess said. "And that's a decision the gaming board is going to have make."

But Orange County developers think that two casinos in the region, including one in Sullivan County, can co-exist. They view their projects more as destination resorts.

Jan Jones Blackhurst, an executive vice president at Caesars, said its proposal in Woodbury near the massive Woodbury Commons outlet mall would complement existing tourism to the region and boost the neighboring Catskills with jobs and visitors.

"What we believe with our Orange site there is a real opportunity to drive tourism," she said.

The state Gaming Commission has sought to assuage concerns that one area may have an edge over another one. The commission's acting director Robert Williams said in June that the law is aimed to ensure that high-need areas, particularly Sullivan County, would be given consideration.

"A perceived advantage for Orange County is inconsistent with both the statute authorizing the competition and the request for applications," Williams wrote.

Timothy Rooney Jr., counsel for Empire City Casino at Yonkers Raceway, said an Orange County casino, particularly one in the southern part, would hurt the Yonkers facility, which has about 5,300 video-lottery terminals -- the most in the state.

"We're hoping that any licenses awarded in that zone would be in the Catskills region, which I think we see as the original intent of the legislation," he said.

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PRESENTATIONS

The New York Gaming Facility Location Board will get presentations Monday and Tuesday in Albany on the 16 proposals for four casinos licenses in three regions of the state. Here's the times when each bidder will make their presentations, which will be held in the Empire State Plaza near the Capitol.

The presentations will also be livestreamed on the agency's website at http://gaming.ny.gov/index.php

Monday

Three hearings will be held later this month to allow the public to weigh in on the casino proposals. They will be held from 8 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Sept. 22 in Albany:

Holiday Inn Turf

205 Wolf Road

Albany, New York 12205

Sept. 23 in Poughkeepsie:

The Grandview

176 Rinaldi Boulevard

Poughkeepsie, New York 12601

Sept. 24 in Ithaca:

Hotel Ithaca

222 South Cayuga Street

Ithaca, New York 14850

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