Nyc Casinos Reignite New Jersey Gambling Fight

A new wave of casinos set to open in New York City is reigniting regional tensions over Atlantic City’s monopoly on casino gambling — and forcing New Jersey to reopen a fight voters thought they had settled.

A decade after voters overwhelmingly rejected a plan to allow casinos in North Jersey, a renewed push to expand gambling is again dividing the state.

New Jersey’s Constitution bans casino gambling outside Atlantic City — a restriction supporters say is necessary to protect the state’s long-struggling gambling hub and South Jersey jobs. But others see expansion as self-preservation, with new casinos across the Hudson threatening to siphon off customers and tax revenue.

“We’ve got a gun to our heads,” New Jersey Sen. Vin Gopal, who is pushing for gaming expansion, told POLITICO. “Those gambling dollars that we would see in North and Central Jersey are going to go across state lines the second these casinos open.”

The urgency is no longer hypothetical. One of the three casinos planned for New York City — an expansion of an existing gaming facility in Queens — is expected to open this spring with full table games. Two additional casinos, proposed for Queens and the Bronx, will follow by 2030.

The new developments have prompted operators at the Meadowlands and Monmouth Park, which already offer horse racing and sports betting, to push for full-scale casinos at both tracks. The developers argue they need slots and table games to compete with New York’s expanding market.

Privately, key players are signaling the effort is unlikely to move this year, in part because there is little appetite for the cross-party push needed to override opposition from South Jersey Democrats.

Casinos remain a major source of revenue for the state. The Office of Legislative Services said in its FY2026 report that Casino Revenue Fund collections are projected to reach $996.2 million, though it attributes much of the recent growth to online gambling.

“The most important question for the Legislature and the governor is: How do we as a state keep the gaming revenue in New Jersey?” said Dennis Drazin, CEO and chair of Darby Development, which operates Monmouth Park. “The state has an obligation to recognize the mega casinos popping up across state borders, and to evaluate carefully.”

For racetrack operators, expansion is also seen as a way to stabilize an industry under long-term pressure.

Horse racing is estimated to support more than 3,700 jobs in New Jersey and generates roughly $75 million in annual tax revenue. But despite $20 million in temporary state subsidies extended through 2029, the industry has continued to decline over time.

Racetrack operators argue that facilities in neighboring Northeast states benefit from casino gaming, which provides a significant additional revenue stream that New Jersey racetracks lack. Adding casinos at the Meadowlands and Monmouth Park, they say, could help close that gap and improve the long-term viability of the industry.

Years of struggles in Atlantic City

But any move to expand casino gambling would also directly affect the state’s long-established gaming hub in Atlantic City.

Atlantic County generated $8.2 billion in visitor spending in 2024. While gaming is among the top tourism drivers, casino operating profits have softened in recent years. Employment has fallen sharply since 2005 after five of 12 casinos closed.

Those trends have fueled ongoing debate over whether casinos have delivered on their promise to revive Atlantic City. While the city’s unemployment rate has fallen from a record high of 30 percent in 2020, it remains at 8 percent as of January, nearly three percentage points above the state average.

Michael Suleiman, chairman of the Atlantic County Democratic Committee, described Atlantic City as “the poster child for proving that casinos are not the economic panacea that we think they are.”

“We have to break the myth that you sprinkle casino dust on Monmouth Park and the Meadowlands, and all will be well,” he said.

New Jersey’s gambling market has changed significantly since the first casinos opened in 1978, when Atlantic City was the only legalized casino jurisdiction outside of Nevada. Today, casino gambling is legal in many states, including neighboring Pennsylvania, creating a far more competitive regional market.

New York City’s new gaming hubs are only expected to intensify that competition.

Brian Tyrrell, the incoming director of the Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming, Hospitality and Tourism at Stockton University, said the new casino proposals would likely target what he described as “the convenience gambler,” redistributing existing demand as people choose to gamble closer to home — whether in New York or North Jersey.

“But in the absence of large-scale destination resorts like those in Atlantic City and those planned in New York, it would be challenging for North Jersey to fully compete,” he added.

Despite those challenges, North Jersey lawmakers are pressing ahead with another expansion push.

North Jersey Sens. Gopal and Paul Sarlo have introduced legislation, NJ SCR66 (26R), that would place a constitutional amendment on the ballot to allow casino gambling at the Meadowlands and Monmouth Park.

The bill would allow the Legislature to set restrictions on casino operations and dedicate the state’s share of revenue to property tax relief, special education, the pension system and support for Atlantic City.

“We already have gambling at both racetracks in the form of horse racing and sports betting,” Gopal said. “That makes them a logical place to expand, and it will be a win-win in benefits.”

The question could reach the ballot as early as November, and Gopal said he hopes to see that happen. But he acknowledged that doing so would require changing the minds of lawmakers and other leaders in South Jersey.

Obstacles to expansion

A constitutional amendment is no easy feat: it must pass both houses of the Legislature by a three-fifths vote in one year or by a simple majority in two consecutive years. That is a high bar that stops most proposals before they ever reach the public, who must also approve amendments in a statewide referendum.

Sen. Vince Polistina, who represents Atlantic County, told POLITICO that South Jersey stakeholders — including lawmakers from both parties, Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small, the city council, and the casino industry itself — plan to do “everything possible” to convince lawmakers to keep the question off the ballot.

While Gopal and other expansion advocates propose dedicating a portion of revenue to Atlantic City, Polistina said he sees no scenario in which such a compromise would be enough.

“Given we’re already going to be hit by the New York casinos, this is not the time to start competing with ourselves,” Polistina added. “The loss of jobs is not going to be replaced with any silver bullet, and the ripple effects on the economy, retail and housing will hit all of South Jersey.”

Opposition has also extended beyond elected officials. Suleiman has launched the website NoNorthJerseyCasinos.com, allowing residents to contact their state legislators directly and order free bumper stickers expressing their opposition.

If the question makes it to the ballot, further resistance from New York-based gaming interests is likely. In 2016, those interests united under the “Trenton’s Bad Bet” campaign, spending $14.4 million on anti-expansion advertising. The effort was widely credited with helping sink the proposal.

These campaigns reflect a longer-standing reality in New Jersey politics: voters have repeatedly been wary of expanding casino gambling beyond Atlantic City.

When the state’s voters first considered casino gambling in 1974, they rejected a broad statewide expansion, with 60 percent voting no. Two years later, a narrower proposal limiting casinos to Atlantic City as “a unique tool of urban redevelopment” narrowly passed with 56 percent support.

Most recently, New Jersey residents decisively shot down the last expansion referendum in 2016 — 77 percent opposed it, and only 23 percent were in favor.

A recent poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University suggests the New York expansion hasn’t changed those attitudes. The poll, conducted in March, found that 49 percent of residents oppose casino expansion, while 44 percent support it.

But expansion advocates say those numbers don’t capture how voters respond to different policy designs. They argue that past questions — including the 2016 referendum — did not clearly define where casinos would be located or how revenue would be distributed.

“There was hesitancy to do anything that would be perceived as hurting Atlantic City, and the question that people were asked to vote on reflected that,” said Chris Donnelly, a spokesperson for the Meadowlands. “All anyone knew was that they could end up with a large casino in their backyard with no actual benefit to their town.”

A separate poll from April commissioned by Meadowlands Racetrack operator Jeff Gural and conducted by Global Strategy Group tested support for a specific Meadowlands casino proposal. The question framed the proposal as a way to “compete with New York’s three new casinos that are making money off of New Jersey residents traveling to visit casinos in New York,” and also noted that tax revenue would fund public education and programs for seniors and people with disabilities.

In that scenario, 61 percent of voters said they supported amending the state constitution to permit a casino at the Meadowlands. The same poll found that 57 percent of respondents said a second casino at Monmouth Park would not change their support.

Matt Friedman contributed to this article.