MONTICELLO – Now that Empire Resorts has shut down its racino at Monticello Raceway, the company would like to move the 1,000 video slot machines to Woodbury, but the chairman of the Assembly Racing and Gaming Committee, Gary Pretlow, is dead set against that. “It’s not going to happen,” he said.
Pretlow would like to see Catskill Off-Track Betting take over the entire Monticello operation of the racetrack and former racino.
Even with the VLTs gone, the assemblyman from Mount Vernon said Empire Resorts must still meet certain financial obligations.
“They still have to make their required payments to the racing industry; the money that was normally generated from the racino that went to racing,” Pretlow said. “They still have to make those payments and they still have to operate the track the way they have operated the track when it was they had the VLTs in place.”
Pretlow told Mid-Hudson News he doesn’t think Empire Resorts, which also owns and operates the year-old Resorts Work Catskills casino in nearby Kiamesha Lake, “has much interest in being a racetrack owner.”
Empire Resorts did not respond to a request for comment.
