At Last Optimism that Meadowlands and Monmouth May Get Casinos

[Wandering Eyes]

A 2016 referendum that would have allowed the Meadowlands to open a casino was a colossal failure. The ballot question lost by about 1.5 million votes.

But nine years later, there is renewed hope that casino gaming could be on its way to two of the last tracks in the country that do not benefit from gaming revenue. Meadowlands owner Jeff Gural is confident that he will get a casino license sometime in 2026. Monmouth officials are also hopeful voters will approve a casino at the Jersey Shore track. If the Meadowlands gets a casino and Monmouth does not, Meadowlands would have to share the proceeds evenly, which would go towards purses at both tracks.

The game changer is that New York is about to award three casino licenses to down state properties. They can be in the five boroughs or Yonkers. Currently, there is a racino at Aqueduct and Yonkers, but they are limited to slot machines and electronic table games. The favorites to get a downstate license are Aqueduct, Yonkers and New York Mets owner Steve Cohen, who has proposed building a casino near Citi Field in Queens.

If there is the status quo in New Jersey and the New York metropolitan area gets three new casinos, Gural predicts that residents of the Garden State will flock to the nearby New York casinos. Yonkers Raceway is 8.5 miles from the George Washington Bridge and the Jersey border. Will New Jersey politicians and voters allow for a scenario where millions of gambling dollars from New Jersey residents are spent in New York State?

“I'm fairly confident, especially if they put a casino at Yonkers, which would be the closest to Northern New Jersey, that people will say to themselves, 'why would I drive over the bridge, sit in traffic and pay $18 if I could go to the Meadowlands to gamble?'” Gural said. “I'm a big believer in common sense. People have told me that a casino at the Meadowlands would be the most successful casino in the country, and I don't doubt that. We have a beautiful facility. We have sports betting. A full casino, I think would pack them in.”

Legislative efforts are already underway to facilitate casino development at the two racetracks, including a proposed constitutional amendment (Bill SCR130) that would allow casino gaming at the Meadowlands Racetrack and Monmouth Park Racetrack. In a race between Democrat Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli, there will be a new governor in New Jersey early next year. Neither has come out for or against New Jersey getting racetrack casinos.

“Once we know where the downstate licenses are going to be and who the governor is going to be, then we've got to try to get a referendum that would allow a casino only at the Meadowlands and not any place else,” Gural said.

Gural said with the way the 2106 referendum was written, it was never going to be approved by the voters.

“I learned from that experience what not to do,” he said.

Gural will campaign for a casino at the Meadowlands only. He doesn't fear the Atlantic City casino lobby, which has successfully kept casinos out of the New Jersey tracks for nearly 50 years.

“I think the opposition is going to come from New York,” he said. “Once New York opens, then people from New York aren't going to go to Atlantic City anymore. So why wouldn't they want to see money stay in New Jersey? It can only help them eventually. The states are broke. So their biggest fear is that the state raises the tax rate on them. They just raised the tax rate on online gambling. If I were the Atlantic City casinos, my biggest worry would be the state needing money would simply raise the tax rate in Atlantic City. So this would help them because they could say, well, we sat on the sidelines and allowed a casino at the Meadowlands, which is generating hundreds of millions of dollars. You should leave us alone. And my guess is that that would be a persuasive argument, too.”

Gural says that should he get a casino and Monmouth does not, the money from the casino earmarked for purses would be split evenly between the two tracks.

“I think this would solidify us as the premier harness track in the country,” he said. “We are already the number one harness track in North America, but we really struggle because we're competing with Yonkers. They get $50 million a year in purse subsidies. And the two Pennsylvania tracks (Pocono Downs and Harrah's Philadelphia) get $30 million each. We've been getting a $6-million subsidy from the state. You can see why we're at a major disadvantage.”

At Monmouth, Dennis Drazin, who heads the Darby Development team that manages Monmouth Park, isn't quite as optimistic as Gural.

“This is a tough one,” he said. “I've been trying to get a casino for 20 to 30 years and frankly have not been successful. The last time we went around and had the ballot question, it was overwhelmingly defeated, but I think it was set up to be a failure because the legislation made it easy to challenge. There was no specificity of where they'd be located, tax rate, who would benefit from it. It just didn't have the accompanying enabling legislation for people to intellectually evaluate it, and it was easy for the opposition to spend 30 minutes to get it defeated.

“Having said that, things have changed. Now they're going to award downstate casinos. It's going to be direct competition for New Jersey. I think the New Jersey legislators and Governor Murphy and whoever the next governor is, either Ciattarelli or Mikie Sherrill, understand that we need to protect the gaming dollars in New Jersey. So I share Jeff's hope this will get done, but I don't think it's any easy lift.”

While any new source of revenue would help Monmouth, Drazin said he will fight to see to it that both tracks gets a casino. He said that the legislation calls for full casinos at both the Meadowlands and Monmouth.

“[Casino owner] Morris Bailey is our gaming partner at Monmouth Park,” Drazin said. “If we were to get one, I think that there may be less of an impact on Atlantic City if we just get slots and not full table games. So that's one scenario that Monmouth Park would be willing to accept in order to get this done. We currently are not in favor of a casino at Meadowlands and not at Monmouth Park. We think the ballot question should be for both racetracks. Jeff is unlikely to get the support of Morris Bailey or Monmouth Park without our getting something out of this, and that won't help him.”

Nothing is imminent but the sense of optimism is something new. Both New Jersey tracks struggle to fill cards and run limited schedules. The Meadowlands runs only twice a week and Monmouth is open three days a week and offers only 50 days of racing. With casinos, that will no doubt change and purses should rise dramatically.

The first casino in New Jersey, Resorts International, now owned by Bailey, opened on May 26, 1978. It's been a tough grind for the Meadowlands and Monmouth ever since and Atlantic City and Garden State Park closed long ago. Could it be that the fight is about to end, with the racetracks being declared the winner? There is hope.

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