BUFFALO, N.Y. — The state Assembly appears to have squashed a new gaming compact between New York and the Seneca Nation over the authorization of a new Monroe County casino included in the deal.
Rochester Democrat Harry Bronson hopes for more transparency in the negotiations before moving forward.
"In order for this to move forward, the Legislature must know what's in the compact. My preference would be those items are statutorily expressed instead of doing a pre-authorization for the governor, not the governor, but her team to negotiate an amendment and an extender without any knowledge of what's in there," Bronson said.
However, the host of Let's Talk Native radio show John Kane believes the Seneca citizens would have done so otherwise.
"There was no way that this deal was going to pass through a referendum. You have to understand, the first one that wasn't fully understood, only passed by 101 votes back in 2001," Kane said.
The proposed deal reportedly included the Senecas sharing 9.75% of its slot machine revenue in year one and 19.5% for the remaining 19 years, in part in exchange for the added money a new facility would generate.
"One simple thing that the Senecas can do to double their gaming revenue without spending a dime is to get rid of revenue sharing altogether," Kane said.
Kane, a Mohawk who lives on Seneca territory, believes, Rochester casino aside, that's a non-starter for many Senecas.
"The vast majority of Senecas that I talk to want no revenue sharing deal, and of course, if you talk to leadership, they keep saying the same thing. 'Yeah, but we need to have that exclusivity.' You don't have an exclusivity," he said.
The outspoken radio host argues the 25% slot revenue sharing deal in the current compact is more like half because the Senecas are responsible for all of the overhead. Despite negotiated exclusivity zones, Kane said the state has competed anyway the last two decades with casinos, racinos, lotto and mobile gaming.
However, he argued any threats New York might license more full casinos in Western New York as bargaining leverage are essentially empty.
"They can't compete against the Seneca Nation who wouldn't be paying a dime to the state while the license holders not only have to pay a half a billion dollars for a license, then they've got to build a casino and then pay 30% of their net revenue to the state," Kane said.
Ultimately, he said it's federally illegal for the state to insist on revenue sharing and if it does so the Senecas could bypass the state and negotiate a compact directly with the U.S. Department of the Interior.