Taxpayers in an upstate New York county are now part owners of an Empire State casino… sort of.
Sullivan County officials approved the creation of Sullivan County Resort Facilities Local Development Corporation. They created the corporation to acquire a majority share of Resorts World Catskills’ nongaming assets.
Resorts World Catskills is located in Monticello and has been losing money for years. With the sale, Genting Group, the Malaysian parent company of the Resorts World brand, offloads the worst-performing branches of the casino onto the taxpayers.
According to the Times Union newspaper, the county will issue bonds to complete the acquisition. It values the deal at $585 million. As a result, the county believes Genting can stay competitive in the New York casino market.
On the other hand, some can see this move as the county bailing out the company’s poor investments.
State Rep. Matt McPhillips chairs the Sullivan County Economic Development Committee, which approved the plan. He stressed that local taxpayers would not be on the hook for funds used to finance the casino assets.
“I really want to assure the people and the taxpayers in Sullivan County that they have no stake in this deal,” McPhillips said. “There’s no collateral that the county or its taxpayers are responsible for. This is more to allow the casino to reconsolidate, reposition itself, and really invest in this property.”
The news comes as Genting is a frontrunner for one of the three downstate casino licenses. It’s racino property in Queens is one of the few projects receiving local support for it.
A downstate license will cost the recipients a minimum of $1 billion between fees and capital investment requirements.
Details Of Casino Acquisition
The county created SCEDC as a non-profit entity to further develop Adelaar, a 1,700-acre area that includes entertainment, recreation, shopping, and lodging options in the Catskill Mountains. That includes the Resorts World casino.
As part of the deal, Resorts World will continue to operate the gaming aspects of the casino. The county will own the hotel, entertainment options, golf course, and all other nongaming assets aside from the waterpark.
The city also takes over ownership of the land the casino sits on and leases it back to Genting.
The county is not exactly getting a hot property. Genting opened the casino in 2018 as one of the four upstate commercial casinos approved by the state legislature five years earlier.
Since then, the property failed to turn a profit and consistently asked the state for tax write-offs. The company’s New York online sports betting operation also failed to generate much revenue. It exited the market over the summer.
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