State gets $57.3 million from Seneca slots; $2.8 million from Buffalo casino
The Seneca Nation of Indians has made a $57.3 million payment of slot machine revenues to New York State, including $2.8 million generated by the embattled Seneca Buffalo Creek slots-only facility in the City of Buffalo.
One-quarter of those revenues — $14.3 million — will be passed to “host communities,” including Niagara Falls and Salamanca. Absence of a revenue sharing agreement in Buffalo will result in $708,302 being held in a state account until a share arrangement is worked out.
Seneca President Maurice A. John Sr. confirmed the payment was made by the June 30 deadline for revenues generated by slot machines at Seneca Niagara, Seneca Allegany and Seneca Buffalo Creek casinos between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2007. The payout is the first from the Buffalo temporary casino, which opened July 3, 2007.
“Our enterprises have created thousands of jobs for local residents, tremendous opportunities for local businesses and needed revenue for local governments,” John said in a statement. “The people of Buffalo are seeing the first fruits of the Seneca Nation’s investment downtown.”
Buffalo and Erie County are at odds over how the local share of slot revenues — which could run as high as $7 million a year when a planned permanent casino is up and running — should be divided.
But any local share argument might be for naught as the long-term future of Seneca gambling in Buffalo is in limbo.
In early July, U. S. District Judge William M. Skretny ruled the National Indian Gaming Commission had made procedural errors in granting the Senecas a permit to operate a casino on a nine-acre site along Michigan Avenue.
Despite Skretny’s July ruling, construction of the permanent Buffalo casino and hotel has continued at full speed. Approximately 40 percent of structural steel for the three-story, 90,000-square-foot casino complex has been erected over the past month.
Seneca Gaming Corporation spokesman Philip J. Pantano said steel for the 22-story hotel tower will start going up in December or January. And construction of the 2,500-vehicle cast concrete parking deck will begin by the end of September.
If legal rulings don’t stop the casino project, it is slated to debut in mid-2010.
Under the 2002 agreement between the Seneca Nation of Indians and the state, the Senecas must share a portion of slot machine revenues with the state and the host community. Over the life of the 14-year agreement, the local share climbs from 18 percent to 25 percent, with the state passing along 25 percent of its take to the locality. Since the scale starts from the date of the compact, the Senecas now pay the state 22 percent of that take.
For the July through December period, the formula generated a local share of $57.4 million. The bulk of that revenue, $38.1 million, came from slots play at Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel. The remainder was earned through Seneca Allegany Casino & Hotel and the Buffalo venue, $16.3 million and $2.8 million, respectively.
