Hard John Rock International and Caesars Entertainment are among the 10 casino companies readying pitches for single of the deuce-ace imminent gaming concessions usable inwards downstate New York.

Seven of the nine casinos inward Atlantic Ocean City won less money inwards someone endure twelvemonth than they did before the COVID-19 pandemic. Hard Rock owns its namesake resort hotel inward Atlantic Ocean City, spell Caesars manages its namesake belongings and two other New Jersey casinos, Harrah’s and Tropicana.

Atlantic City stakeholders are course concerned with how threesome Las Vegas-style gambling casino resorts inward New York City with slot machines, live dealer tabularise games, and sports betting will wallop the casino beach town. It almost certainly won’t live to Atlantic Ocean City’s betterment.

Atlantic City on High Alert

Numerous gambling casino giants inward add-on to Hard Rock and Caesars are expected to bidding on the New York concessions. The laundry name of interested developers ready to pony up a $500 meg licence fee and billions to a greater extent into an structured resort in the Big Apple include MGM Resorts, Genting, Las Vegas Sands, Wynn Resorts, Mohegan, Bally’s, the Chickasaw Nation, and Greenwood Gaming (Parx).

Jim Allen, chairman of Hard John Rock International, says formerly the tercet New York casinos open, Atlantic Ocean City’s gaming market could follow reduced by more than a quarter in terms of yearly gaming revenue.

“We have to be prepared for that,” Gracie Allen said this week at the Orient Coast Gaming Congress at his Hard Rock Hotel & Casino inward Atlantic City.

Allen says the reducing inwards run testament to the highest degree impact the city’s brick-and-mortar undersurface feeders — Bally’s, Golden Nugget, and Resorts. While Hard Rock testament care the tighter market, Allen is interested that 1 or more of those casinos could close, a development that would washing thousands of jobs from Atlantic City.

Caesars CEO Uncle Tom Reeg echoed Allen’s worries on Thursday.

I portion Jim’s concerns most where the Atlantic City marketplace is headed as we lead into New York,” Reeg said, adding that Caesars is pursuing New House of York “with fervor.”

Bally’s Chairman Soo Kim said iGaming — something that doesn’t come along likely to follow to New House of York anytime shortly — will reserve his Boardwalk dimension to remain inwards stage business regardless of whether in the flesh(p) toy farther declines.

“There’s casinos everywhere,” Kim said of the stream landscape painting and gaming options inward Philadelphia, Delaware, Upstate New York, and two New York racinos — MGM’s Empire City and Genting’s Resorts World.

Upstate New Jersey

Jeff Gural, who runs the Meadowlands Racetrack and the track’s highly profitable FanDuel retail and online sportsbook, says New island of Jersey should spread out cassino gaming compass north to Bergen County. Gural remains partnered with Hard John Rock for an structured holiday resort at the Meadowlands should a effectual exchange come in to permit casinos out of doors of Atlantic Ocean City.

Gural believes a holiday resort at the Meadowlands would donjon some gaming money inwards the Garden State that might otherwise rate of flow crossways the William Henry Hudson River into New House of York City. New island of Jersey voters in 2016 rejected a statewide ballot referendum that would make allowed casinos remote of Atlantic Ocean City. Gural has stayed on the North Jersey cassino class but has learned that forbearance is key.

I’m simply waiting for New York to open,” Gural told the Associated Press this hebdomad well-nigh igniting another gambling casino referendum inwards New Jersey. “People testament say, ‘Why am i driving o'er the George Washington D.C. Bridge and paying an $18 toll and sitting inwards traffic to depart gamble?”

An upstate New island of Jersey cassino would presumably only further wounded Atlantic City. Mark Giannantonio, prexy of Resorts Casino Hotel and the Casino Association of New Jersey, says Atlantic City resorts must proceed to rise their offering to wee-wee the beachside destination more attractive over the next 2 years before New York casinos open.

“There’s a lot of piece of work to do,” Giannantonio summarized.