Tioga Downs owner Jeff Gural joins Traditions co-owner Peter Walsh and State Sen. Thomas W. Libous, R-Binghamton, to announce they are going to work together to convince the Gaming Facility Location Board to award the fourth license to Tioga Downs.(Photo: KRISTOPHER RADDER / Staff Photo)
Local developers and legislators want a do-over in the state casino competition.
As part of a plea for reconsideration, Traditions Resort & Casino in the Town of Union is backing a proposed expansion of the existing racino at Tioga Downs in Nichols. The truce ends more than a year of carping, with each casino applicant trying to find faults with the competing proposal.
"There is no longer a division over Tioga or Traditions," said Traditions developer Peter Walsh, who was joined Tuesday by about 60 supporters at his property. "We have put our pride and our differences aside."
Last week, the Gaming Facility Location Board awarded the regional casino slot to Lago Resort & Casino in the Seneca County community of Tyre, a location that stretches the definition of the Southern Tier to an area north of the state Thruway, between Syracuse and Rochester.
The two other Southern Tier proposals — Traditions and Tioga Downs — were shut out of the competition as Gaming Facility Location Board Chairman Kevin Law said the Lago proposal was the best of the three submitted for the region.
The board only awarded three of the four possible licenses available. Of the 16 bids submitted, sites in Schenectady and Sullivan County were selected in addition to Lago's by Rochester developer Thomas Wilmot Sr.
Area representatives say the Southern Tier was cheated out of potential economic benefits from the casino — hundreds of jobs and additional tax revenues to municipalities — when it was passed over for the license.
State Sen. Thomas W. Libous, R-Binghamton, said local officials will continue to lobby Gov. Andrew Cuomo to reopen the competition to award the fourth casino license for a full gambling operation here.
"It's not a be all, fix all, but we need it," Libous said. "We need it badly."
Tioga Downs owner Jeff Gural has operated the state-sanctioned racino — which features slots and harness racing, but not table games — for nearly eight years.
He said that, in retrospect, his suspicions should have been aroused when the state originally defined the Southern Tier region as extending northward nearly to Lake Ontario.
"This clearly has to be a mistake," Gural said.
At Tioga Downs, the expanded casino would have 1,000 slot machines and 50 table games. The racino's existing 802 video lottery terminals would be converted to traditional slot machines. The planned hotel would have 137 rooms. The projected total investment would be $187 million.
At Traditions, the casino, with 1,200 slot machines and 50 table games, would have added a five-story addition to the existing Traditions resort, including two levels of garage parking. The hotel, with about 160 rooms, would have been six stories, including a garage level. The projected total investment would have been $212 million.
The estimated cost of the successful Lago proposal is $425 million, with 85 table games, 2,000 slot machines, and a hotel with 207 rooms.
Revenues from a casino in Tioga County would produce more than $3 million annually for Tioga County and the Town of Nichols, according to state projections, with lesser amounts for other surrounding counties.
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