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Las Vegas Sands, the casino and resort company that has aggressively maneuvered to build a casino on Long Island in recent years, said on Wednesday that it was dropping its campaign, citing the potential threat posed to its profit margins by online gambling.
Casino companies and real estate developers have fiercely competed in recent years for three casino licenses to be awarded by the state in and around New York City. Las Vegas Sands, one of the largest casino companies in the world, has been a leading contender for the right to open a casino on the site of Nassau Coliseum, a large arena just outside New York City.
Its decision to drop that bid — over what it said were concerns about “the impact of the potential legalization of iGaming on the overall market opportunity and project returns” — was a major development in the cutthroat competition to bring full-fledged casinos to New York.
Other developers who have vigorously pursued bids include Steve Cohen, the owner of the New York Mets, who wants to open a casino at Citi Field in Queens with Hard Rock Entertainment; the Hudson Yards developer Related Companies, which has proposed a casino on the Far West Side of Manhattan with Wynn Resorts; SL Green Realty Corporation, which wants to open a casino in Times Square with Caesars Entertainment; and Bally’s Corporation, which seeks to open one at a site in the Bronx that once housed the Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point.
In a statement, Sands said it still believed that Nassau Coliseum would be the best location for a new casino. It said it would seek to transfer its right to bid for a license on that site to another company, and would use the money it might have spent on the project to buy shares of Las Vegas Sands and a subsidiary, Sands China.
The proposal to open a casino in Nassau County has been met with resistance from community groups as well as Hofstra University, which has said it believes the casino would be too close to its campus.
Allison O’Brien Silva, a spokeswoman for the Say No to the Casino Civic Association, which has campaigned against the proposal to put a casino in the county, said the group was “thrilled that Las Vegas Sands has stepped away” but was “concerned the door remains open to find a new casino partner.”
“Our group fought hard to show that dropping a mega casino in the middle of our suburban community would be a wholly destructive choice,” she said. “It was always a bad idea, and it will continue to be a bad idea, whether the county works with Las Vegas Sands or another company looking to extract wealth from our community.”
But others, including the Nassau County executive, Bruce Blakeman, a Republican, have championed the idea. On Wednesday, Chris Boyle, a spokesman for Mr. Blakeman, said the county government was optimistic that a new developer would step in and remained “committed to the development of the Coliseum site with or without a casino.”
“There is strong interest from gaming organizations which have been in confidential discussions with Nassau County in taking the place of Las Vegas Sands in the licensing application process,” Mr. Boyle said in a statement. “Nassau County will crystallize within the next 30 days whether or not to entertain a casino component or develop the site without.”
“In either event,” he added, “there will be an exciting new development that will create jobs and positive economic activity.”
Las Vegas Sands had been seen as one of the stronger competitors in the contest to bring casinos to the New York region.
It aggressively pursued public support for its $6 billion bid by showering Nassau County with perks, including sports clinics that featured star athletes like the soccer player David Beckham. It had also promised multimillion-dollar payments to both the town of Hempstead and Nassau County.
The state’s process for choosing a casino site is a slow-moving and complex one, and a series of public hearings is required before any license can be issued. The state’s five-member Gaming Facility Location Board oversees the process and will make recommendations to the state Gaming Commission, which will make the final decisions.
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