The Senate passed the bill nearly unanimously, but, as word spread about the proposed Rochester casino, opposition mounted and the Assembly shelved its vote, sending the negotiators back to the bargaining table. Hochul’s office kept private all the crucial details of what was negotiated with the tribe, one element in particular proved fatal in the legislature: an agreement to allow the Senecas to build a casino, the tribe’s fourth, in or near Rochester, part of an upstate market that the state’s own study had called “saturated” with gambling options. It has alienated local officials and gambling and labor interests that are powerful forces in New York State politics and left the state and the Senecas no closer to a new casino compact.Īlthough Ms. Kathy Hochul, who has faced questions over her husband’s ties to commercial gambling interests, tried to fast-track a bill that would have given her administration blanket authority to negotiate a new compact with the Native American nation - and cut out the scrutiny that accompanied the old one.īut now the effort, marked as it was by secrecy and a lack of consultation with virtually anyone besides tribal leaders, has backfired spectacularly. With a few precious hours left before state lawmakers were set to break for the year, that suddenly seemed set to change: Gov.

The Secret Deal For A Tribal Casino And Why It Imploded (June 28, 2023)įor months, talks over a new casino deal between New York State and the Seneca Nation of Indians have been at an impasse, with the two sides deadlocked over the size of the state’s cut of hundreds of millions of dollars in gambling revenue, and what the tribe would get in return.

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