Tioga Downs wants IN on casino license

Last December, the state announced that three upstate communities, including Schenectady, would get casino licenses. As it turns out, the process has been reopened, and now the possibility looms that Schenectady might have even more competition then they anticipated.

For anyone planning to deal casino cards in New York State, first they'll have to deal with a painstaking process, the beginning of which played out Thursday afternoon when 55 boxes of application documents were dropped off at the state gaming commission headquarters in Schenectady, by officials from Tioga Downs in Nichols, New York, near the Pennsylvania border.

"We are going for out-of-state dollars," said Tom Osiecki, president of American Racing & Entertainment (ARE), "Of course there will be in-state dollars, but if you look at our location, we pretty much have a monopolistic location that sits right in the center of the Souther Tier, which was the idea behind this second RFA."

Even though the gaming commission's sighting board awarded three casino licenses last December 17th, they have since reopened the process at the urging of Governor Cuomo, which meant, Tioga Downs, which was originally rejected, gets a second chance.

"We took the feedback from the state in their reports and in the location board reports and we enhanced our bid," Osiecki said.

If Tioga Downs wins a license this time around, they would be less then 160 miles from the Rivers Casino at Mohawk Harbor in Schenectady.

"Actually, our primary competition is Mohican Sun out of Wilkes Barre," Osiecki stated.

He anticipates taking business from Pennsylvania casinos, but he rejects the notion that Tioga would cannibalized upstate New York facilities including Turning Stone (Verona, NY), and the soon to be built Lao Resort in Kiamesha Lake.

"I really don't think you'll see much (advertising for Tioga Downs in the Capital Region)," Osiecki says, "It's not a close market that we would go after. Schenectady is far enough away that I think it would have its own market and I think vice versa."

A spokesman from the Rivers Casino told News Channel 13 Thursday afternoon that he doesn't envision people visiting Schenectady from the Southern Tier so he's not concerned about the possibility of one more upstate casino.