Community Advisory Committees: Breaking Down the Gatekeepers of the New York Casino Race

^{Gov. Kathy Hochul (left) and New York City Mayor Eric Adams, seen here together celebrating the New York Liberty’s winning the WNBA Championship, both have a say on establishing the community advisory committees that will have a huge role in determining which downstate New York casino projects get greenlighted. (Photo: Lev Radin / Sipa USA)}

After a flurry of activity before the June 27, 2025 deadline to submit applications for the three available downstate casino licenses in New York, there’s now just five months before the Gambling Facility Location Board (GFLB) will determine who will get to build in what might be the most lucrative untapped gaming market in the United States. But there’s one key group that could present a hurdle for applicants: the Community Advisory Councils, who have the power to end a bid with one vote.

This summer, each casino project will see a Community Advisory Council (CAC) form, hold meetings and public hearings, and ultimately vote on the fate of each bid before the GFLB gets a chance to pick the winners in this high-stake casino race. (Casinos.com is sticking to the odds we set for entertainment purposes only.)  

Key Politicians Will Choose Committee Members

First, each CAC will need to be formed. Elected officials overseeing the site of each proposal will have the opportunity to appoint someone (potentially including themselves) to serve on the applicable CAC. For the seven projects located within New York City, each CAC will be made up of six members, with one each appointed by the following officials:

• New York Governor Kathy Hochul
• New York City Mayor Eric Adams
• The applicable State Senator
• The applicable State Assemblymember
• The applicable Borough President
• The applicable City Councilmember

There is only one remaining bidder outside of New York City: the proposal to expand MGM’s Empire City Casino at Yonkers Raceway in Yonkers into a full-fledge casino from its current racino setup. For that project, the CAC will consist of five individuals appointed by the following:

• New York Governor Kathy Hochul
• Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins
• State Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins
• State Assemblymember J. Gary Pretlow
• Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano

Each CAC will be tasked with reviewing the application for its project, soliciting public comments on the proposal, and holding “no less than two public hearings” on the casino bid. The CACs are subject to Open Meetings laws and New York’s Freedom of Information Law.

Two-Thirds Vote Required to Advance

Finally, each CAC will be asked to make a vote “establishing public support approving or disapproving the application” by September 30, 2025. A two-thirds positive vote from a CAC will be considered an approval; any other result will be considered a rejection of the application, which will then not be advanced to the GFLB.

The two-thirds rule does put projects outside of New York City at a slight disadvantage, at least on paper. While a proposal from NYC needs four affirmative votes out of six to move forward, other projects have only a five-member board, yet would still need four positive votes to meet that threshold. 

In practice, that won’t likely be an issue for the Empire City Casino proposal, which has seen little opposition from locals or politicians. Instead, there may be more uncertainty over some of the projects in NYC that have been fiercely opposed in their local communities.

For a project like Metropolitan Park, generally strong support from local politicians should be enough to overcome likely opposition from State Sen. Jessica Ramos (D-Queens). But other projects face a mix of support and opposition from local elected officials. And while both Gov. Hochul and Mayor Adams have appeared reluctant to stand in the way of individual proposals, they might hold swing votes to stop projects they don’t approve of – especially if there’s legitimate community opposition they can point to as justification for a no vote. 

In fact, a likely loss as the CAC stage may already have stopped one project in its tracks. When Wynn Resorts and Related Companies dropped their bid for a Hudson Yards casino, the developers referenced the local opposition – and with several local politicians having come out strongly against the idea, four votes from the CAC may have seemed like an impossible hurdle to overcome.

In the end, it’s likely that most (if not all) of the eight remaining proposals will clear this stage. But getting CAC approval is only a prerequisite for a casino license, not the final word. The GFLB will make its picks for up to three license winners by Dec. 1, 2025, with the New York State Gaming Commission issuing those licenses around the end of the year.