North Jersey confident on casino expansion
Lobbyists agree that the possibility of bringing casinos to North Jersey is not far from happening.
US.- North Jersey has tried to bring casinos to the city for quite some time, but all attempts have been defeated. The last time the city tried to expand gambling outside Atlantic City, a ballot box showed that 78 per cent of voters rejected the idea. However, experts agree that there are still chances to bring casinos to the city.
Bill Cortese, executive director of Trenton’s Bad Bet, which spend more than US$14 million to fight the casino expansion, said: “We’ve seen casino expansion proponents continue their efforts to expand gaming outside of Atlantic City despite the overwhelming voice back in 2016 and, so, we still remained concern about that expansion happening.”
While there has been more than one attempt this year to make the expansion prosper, it has failed or stopped before gaining momentum. Cortese said that his group will continue to fight the casino expansion as he believes that it would hurt South Jersey jobs and billions in economic activity that the gambling industry creates in that territory.
Casino executive Steve Norton believes that Atlantic City could actually benefit from the North Jersey expansion, and he proposed that a portion of the revenue could be returned to Atlantic City for social programs, among other things. “Atlantic City should understand that if they get taxes from the Meadowlands, it could be a win-win for everybody,” Norton said.
