They’ll need to win over a six-member community advisory committee, then spend $500 million on the license and another $500 million in capital investment. Right now, real-estate giants like Related and SL Green, hedge-funder/Mets owner Steve Cohen, real estate scion Steven Soloviev, and Coney Island magnate Joe Sitt have all thrown down a $1 million application fee to be in the running. Owning a casino is widely acknowledged to be like printing money ( unless you’re Donald Trump, but even then, also, sort of), something that few among the obscenely wealthy business types can resist.
It’s been a few months since New York opened the bidding process for the three downstate casino licenses, and billionaires have spent much of that time falling all over themselves to win New York City’s. Soloviev’s first proposal featured a giant ferris wheel, since scrapped in favor of a flower light installation.
