Resorts World NYC Adds 1,400 Slots as New York Eyes Atlantic City’s Crown

A little under 3 months after Resorts World NYC opened its casino doors, Phase 1 is now finished, and we are into Phase 2. Genting Group has added 1,400 slots to its casino floor, and it is now focusing on its hotel, sports center, central plaza and parking expansions. For gamers, more table games have been promised by the year end, as Resorts World NYC takes advantage of being the only downstate casino in New York City.

For the time being, that is. As there are 2 more casinos in the works, but these are not going to open their doors anytime soon. Metropolitan Park and Bally’s (BALY ) in the Bronx are slated to launch a preliminary opening by 2030, so Resorts World can take full advantage in the meantime.

Phase 1 already generated impressive revenue sums for Resorts World NYC, and with Phase 2 taking the number of slots up to a good 3,900, this NYC casino is bigger in size than many of the Las Vegas and Atlantic City casinos. New York may well become the next big gaming destination in the US – and at this rate, it may even dream of overtaking Atlantic City down South.

Resorts World NYC Launches Phase 2

In July, Resorts World NYC entered phase 2 of the $5.5 billion project, with the Executive Chairman of Genting Group (the Malaysian company that owns the Resorts World casino chain), sharing the good news in a formal announcement. Resorts World NYC is ahead of schedule, and now having added 1,400 slots to the gaming floor, it already has more slots than some of the largest casinos in Vegas. This downstate NYC casino has 3,900+ gaming machines, whereas the MGM Grand and Venetian have around 2,500+ and 2,300+, respectively.

Right now, Resorts World NYC has around 3,900+ slots and 240 gaming tables. But that is just the start – when the project is fully finished, Genting Group wants it to house over 6,000 slots and a whopping 800+ gaming tables.

This next stage of expansion will focus on the development of a 400 room tower extension to the Hyatt Regency and 1,200 more hotel rooms for the luxury Crockfords brand. On the entertainment side of things, Genting Group wants to open the Kenny “The Jet” Sports and Media Complex, three years ahead of schedule, and move this to the middle of the campus, for better accessibility. There is also a 7,000 seater multi-purpose arena designed for this next stage, and Genting Group wants to break ground on the central plaza, as well as a cutting-edge parking garage.

“Not only are we keeping every commitment we made in our proposal to the state, but we are running well ahead of schedule in starting to build outside of our existing building.”

Executive Chairman Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay pointed out that most of the next resort luxury facilities and expansions are happening around the casino building – so games can continue uninterrupted throughout the entire build.

Before and After Effect

Resorts World did not start from scratch with this NYC development, before it obtained its NYC downstate casino license in a lengthy bidding process, Resorts World had an operational VLT venue. Opened in 2011, the site had around 2,280 video lottery terminals, a form of gaming machine that connected to a centralized computer system.

These had slot style games, as well as types of digital roulette, baccarat and blackjack, and even jackpots. But as Resorts World was only a racino, it could not offer the real casino slots and classic games.

Slots vs VLTs

The slots and gaming machines are completely independent and use RNGs to determine outcomes. With VLTs, Resorts World could provide slots-style games, but instead of spinning the reels and getting an outcome, the games were essentially scratch cards. You would press spin, and this would “draw a ticket” from the centralized computer, from a pool of winning and losing tickets, and you would get a digital animation with a game outcome. There were fixed numbers of outcomes, and once a jackpot was hit, it disappeared from the pool until the lottery reset.

With slots, you don’t get all of that. There are more results, more complex paytables and the outcomes are determined by Random Number Generators, which can draw randomized outcomes over hundreds of thousands of rounds.

Smashing Weekly Gaming Revenue Figures

Back to Resorts World NYC, after this big launch in April, the casino practically doubled its gaming revenue. In the weeks before the expansion, it was averaging around $12 to $13 million in gaming revenue every week. In its very first week of the casino launch, Resorts World NYC bagged $27.2 million in gaming revenue. Since then, weekly totals have scaled up to around $30 million per week.

How do we know these figures? It is mandated by the New York State Gaming Commission, as part of the city laws, to release information about the gaming revenue figures and taxes.

Should Atlantic City Be Worried?

Atlantic City is, traffic permitted, a 2 hour drive down South from New York City, and there are 9 casino resorts in Atlantic City. These include famous venues such as the Ocean Casino Resort, Borgata, Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City and Caesars Atlantic City. It is the gaming Mecca that Vegas is, but only on the East Coast. In terms of revenue from brick-and-mortar gaming venues, Atlantic City generates a good $2.9 billion per year, which is roughly three times smaller than the Las Vegas Strip casinos, which make around $8.6 billion.

Now there are casinos spread out across the state of New York, which earn well, but if you were to consider New York City as a gaming destination (which it is poised to become with these 3 licensed downstate casinos), then it could offer some serious competition to Atlantic City. The GGR right now across this market is difficult to gauge, as it is fragmented across racinos with VLTs and non-traditional casino games. Some figures indicate that it could be around $1 billion in annual gross gaming revenue. But now that Resorts World NYC has launched, and 2 more competitors are en route to launching in the Big Apple (AAPL ), that figure looks set to jump significantly.

We could extrapolate that $30 million weekly total – which would come up to $1.5+ billion a year, or take the $230+ million in gross gaming revenue across the venues first 11 weeks – that figure coming up to around $1.08+ billion. But the truth is that it is simply too early to tell how big the NYC commercial gaming market will become.

The bottom line, however, for Atlantic City Casino operators is that yes. This will disrupt revenue, and potentially see a lot of their traffic lost to New Yorkers and international tourists who will gravitate more towards the NY casinos.

Other NYC Casino Projects in the Works

Soon after the NYC casino license bidding wars concluded, the New Jersey gaming authorities looked into updating their landbased casino rules. Since the 70s, physical casinos were only allowed in Atlantic City, but the lawmakers explored the notion of giving licenses to several racinos in Meadowlands and Monmouth to launch their own casino games. This very notion was floated back in 2016, but it was shot down by the public. However, times have changed, and in a big way.

For Resorts World NYC is the first of a triumvirate of Big Apple casinos that are set to dominate the East Coast. You also have Bally’s Bronx, a development that will completely renew Ferry Point with a casino, resort and a waterfront development. Its slated portfolio will comprise around 3,500 slots and up to 250 gaming tables. And then, there is the more ambitious Hard Rock Metropolitan Park, which promises to be a campus of resort amenities and gaming facilities – with up to 5,000 slot machines and 375 gaming tables.

Genting Group is arguably the most ambitious of the three. It took an already existing racino, so the foundational infrastructure was already there, and decided to expand on this in a big way. There will be hotels, luxury amenities, retailers, dining, and a gaming floor that will feature up to 6,000 slots and 800 table games. New York City may have just 3 casinos for the foreseeable future, compared to Atlantic City’s 9. But given the overwhelming interest and early flow of traffic into Resorts World NYC, the city looks set to make good on its promise to create a massive gaming hub, with jobs, state revenue, and public development projects.