Tagged: casinos

In last week’s State of the State address, Governor Andrew Cuomo said it’s about time New York adjusted its state constitution to legalize full-scale gambling.

“It is not a question of whether or not we should have gaming in the state,” Cuomo argued. “We don’t realize it. We don’t regulate it. We don’t capitalize on it. But we have gaming.”

There are already five tribal casinos operating in the state. In 2001, racetracks were authorized to add video gaming machines, creating “racinos.”

So it’s easy to make the argument, says SUNY New Paltz political science professor Gerald Benjamin, that allowing full casinos in some places, but not others, makes no sense.

But that doesn’t mean that amending the state constitution to allow gambling will be easy, says Benjamin.

“There’s always been a lot of controversy about the exact geographic locations in which gambling might be permitted, whether it should be run by the government or run by private enterprise under government regulation,” he says.

Basically, brace yourself for a whole lot of political maneuvering.

The conventional wisdom on hiring is that it's slow and won't improve anytime soon. Companies just aren't filling vacant positions or producing all that many new jobs.

But the Seneca Nation in western New York is bucking that trend, creating new jobs - including those calling for highly-skilled technology workers - at their casino in Niagara Falls.

There's a catch though. With such a small population, the Senecas are forced to look outside of their own ranks to fill those positions.