Jeff Gural still fantasizes about a casino at the Meadowlands

[stanetelman]

This is a snippet of an article by Andrew Cohen that was posted in the Daily Racing Form.

"As he usually does, the owner and operator of the Meadowlands, Jeff Gural, made a little bit of news during an interview on the in-house broadcast. I have been horse partners with Gural for many years and the track is a sponsor of this column. Gural has been trying for many years to convince New Jersey legislators, and voters, that northern New Jersey deserves and could support a full-blown casino at the Meadowlands. So have I. I wrote this editorial essay back in 2010 pressing for the Garden State to get past its flailing Atlantic City mindset and get a real casino into the most populous part of the state. Imagine the tax revenue, I argued then.

Gural says that southern New York tracks will have to get casino licenses before New Jersey rouses itself to compete across the Hudson River. He suspects that New Jersey residents who want to gamble aren’t going to want to fight through traffic, cross over the George Washington Bridge, and pay all the requisite tolls, every time they want to play bigtime poker. He hopes that New Jersey residents will be so opposed to such an idea that they will generate the political push necessary
to pass a state ballot measure that would authorize such a casino. Gural also knows that New York gaming interests will do all they can to block such a ballot initiative.

Any way you slice it, it looks like there is going to be a great deal of fireworks between New York and New Jersey over a casino industry bolstered by the spread of legalized sports gambling. And it looks like New Jersey will finally have another chance to do what it should have done 15 years ago. As a friend and fellow horseman put it to me a long time ago, “every American should have the right to gamble without having to cross that f-cking bridge to do so.” To the folks who will soon be running the pro-casino campaign in New Jersey, go ahead, be my guest, feel free to use that line in your campaign ads. And don’t forget to invite me to opening day."

[Grandstand Handicapper]

I guess fantasizes could be an appropriate term. I don't have a problem with him wanting a casino for the Meadowlands. He's supposed to want one.

 Wanting a casino and having a strategic partner was the reason for Gural's/Meadowlands original "partnership" with Hard Rock. The end result is that if no casinos are ever built outside of AC, there will be casinos sprinkled across every border of NJ surrounding the state. Between Yonkers and Aqueduct, and the new locations being approved, there will be plenty of casinos and not one dollar directed to NJ. That's OK if that's what NJ is willing to accept. However, if a casino in NNJ is revisited, I think Gural should and will be considered.

Nobody was shocked that the 2016 vote went the way it did. Most politicians and strategists said it was supposed to get voted down because of the language and the way the referendum was written. However, I've heard there is a strong push for a new referendum, and with Murphy outgoing, a Senate seat open, and with the current landscape the way it is, a new referendum seems very possible. If this specifically says casino at the Meadowlands-----how do you think that vote will go? It won't be 4 or 5 to 1, and I would bet money on that, LOL. Gural may not push because he originally said he wanted the casinos in downstate NY to be opened.

Can you imagine if a casino opened at Hudson Yards, along the East River, or in Times Square? While people may throw stones at Gural, Steve Cohen is overtly lobbying for a casino Citi Field. His partner? Hard Rock. We already know the plan is for another casino to open to on the site of the Nassau Coliseum. That land has been secured already.

AC is screaming already at the talk of a casino in NYC. If NNJ was considered, who knows what the AC lobbying people will do. The CANJ (Casino Association of NJ) ain't no bandleader, LOL. Threat, damaging to AC, or not, this is capitalism. AC has had their monopoly for a long time. PA is a threat? Sure, but they built them anyway. Let's not forget, Hard Rock is in AC too-----yet they want to build elsewhere, in NYC, and yes, in NNJ. I think NJ has missed the boat more than once. If there are going to be casinos throughout NYC, then NJ will lose even more.

[Gaagoots]

More power to Jeff Gural! Wouldn't be a Meadowlands if not for him. The Jersey Horseman should be kissing his ass or they would be racing Freehold.

[Papillon]

Trenton decides if there will be a casino outside Atlantic City-not the voters

There will be NO casino outside of AC anytime soon

Gural thought he could waltz in and be anointed a casino

he doesnt understand NJ politics