Genting has backed off its lobbying for a casino in the large and populous US state of Florida, but the resort giant plans to move forward with construction of a luxury hotel on Miami’s Biscayne Bay.
Both Genting and Las Vegas Sands talked about their plans in testimony earlier this week before the Select Committee on Gaming of the Florida House of Representatives. The committee and its counterpart in the state Senate have launched a comprehensive review of gambling in Florida and are expected to report their findings later this year.
Genting Americas, the US arm of the Malaysian conglomerate, was at the forefront of a failed push to bring resort-scale casinos to the state and had purchased the old bay-front complex of the Miami Herald in 2011 as the location of a planned US$2 billion destination resort with a casino.
“I couldn’t say we’ve entirely abandoned it,” Jessica Hoppe, general counsel and senior vice president Genting Americas, told the committee. But the company has shifted to a “mode of wait and see,” she said. She added that Genting remains committed to developing a 500-room hotel, condominiums and retail space on five acres of the 14-acre site.
Nick Iarossi, a lobbyist for Las Vegas Sands, urged lawmakers to “go big” with casino legalization.
But as experience has shown, any such proposal will have significant opposition to overcome from influential entities such as Disney, the Florida Chamber of Commerce and the incumbent gambling industry, which includes several racinos and large tribal casinos.
RelatedPosts
