NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. - Rows of brightly colored slot machines await the coins of gamblers at the refurbished Niagara Falls Convention Center, where the Seneca Nation intends to become the biggest employer in this tired border city.
After an $80 million face lift and $30 million worth of furniture and fixtures, the concrete dome that has been a debt-ridden, deteriorating landmark for decades has risen with new purpose from the mist of one of the world's great wonders.
It has become New York state's newest casino.
Viewed by many as a business that will enrich both an impoverished Iroquois tribe and a cash-strapped state treasury, the casino is opening in a mad dash to beat lawsuits and opponents of more gambling in New York.
First of three
Gov. George E. Pataki recently cut the ribbon at the Seneca Niagara Casino. It is the first casino in New York with legal slot machines in a deal Pataki negotiated in 2001. It is envisioned as the first of three Seneca casinos in western New York and the start of a proliferation of gambling venues across the state, including up to six new American Indian facilities and eight horse tracks offering slot machines.
For the Indian nation and the region, the casino offers much needed jobs and economic development. For the state, it represents hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from the state's approximately 25 percent cut of quarters dropped into the 2,625 slots. Estimates are that the state will receive at least $1 billion in revenue during the 14-year compact term, sharing a small amount with the municipality for services.
The casino opening came after a split vote among the Seneca and violent feuding over gambling that left three members dead.
But for two relatively violence-free years of debate, the supporters of gaming represented by the Seneca Party have built a team of high-powered lobbyists, casino experts, lawyers and politicians to pitch gambling as a way out of centuries of poverty.
Sovereignty issue
"I'm looking to maximize our revenue-generation capabilities ... to strengthen our economy and strengthen our sovereignty status," said Rick Armstrong, who recently defeated an anti-casino rival to become Seneca president. "We've been depending on grants for a long time."
He replaced Cyrus Schindler, a former ironworker now working as chairman of Seneca Niagara Falls Gaming Corp., the entity created to operate the casino. Schindler worked closely with Pataki on the gaming compact.
The corporation is paying 29 percent interest to its financial backer, the Malaysian Lim family that bankrolled Foxwoods Casino in Mashantucket, Conn. But Schindler, a smoke shop operator, said the rate is not extraordinary.
"When I started my business, I couldn't get a bank loan. I maxed out on five credit cards. But I got my business and I paid the debt in a year," he said.
Touring the casino recently, Seneca Corp. President and Chief Executive Officer G. Michael "Mickey" Brown recalled what it looked like when the state turned it over to the Senecas on Sept. 22. Repairs needed to be made to the roof, which still leaks in spots, and the building's motif was changed from 1970s bowling alley to a somewhat gaudy trees-and-forest theme.
'It was a dump'
"It was a dump," Brown said.
Brown, the former chief executive of Foxwoods, helped build the Connecticut Indians' business from a 60,000-square-foot cinder block bingo hall into the world's biggest casino. He said the Seneca operation has become the only full-service casino in New York complete with slots and liquor. It is much bigger than the St. Regis Mohawk tribe's casino in Hogansburg, and smaller than Turning Stone, run by the Oneida in Verona.
Brown hypes the place as superior to Casino Niagara, just over the Rainbow Bridge. From his office overlooking the new gambling floor, he said: "We're going to be a better product. Ours will be larger, brand-new, all on one floor. It's going to be gambling in U.S. dollars and winning in U.S. dollars."
Brown also said he thinks the Seneca gaming will exceed that of Casino Niagara and Turning Stone.
The Oneida casino did $207 million in business in 2001, producing an almost $70 million net profit, according to a document provided to bond investors last month. None of it is shared with the state, although New York is suing, alleging the Oneidas don't have the right to operate gambling machines.
Unlike the Oneida and Canada facilities, Brown said, his casino will offer free drinks to gamblers while selling alcoholic beverages at casino bars. Brown said he is confident he'll get a liquor license from the Pataki administration, something the Oneidas have been unable to gain.
100-mile draw
Gaming analysts say Brown likely will draw mostly from a regional market extending about 100 miles around Niagara Falls. Attracting Canadians in large numbers may be difficult, they say, because of the weaker Canadian dollar, plentiful gambling north of the border and the benefit of tax-free winnings in the neighboring nation.
William Newby, managing director of the Bank of America, the leading bank for casino financing, said the Seneca casino site is fair, but competition across the border is an obstacle to importing Canadian wealth.
"The folks that tend to gamble at those places tend to be locals. Tourists don't go to gamble," he said. But, he added, the casino certainly will generate enough cash to pay for two more tribal casinos, one in Buffalo and another on reservation land.
Politicians and business leaders here see the casino as a way to stem the export of gambling and development dollars as locals and investors travel over the bridge to Casino Niagara, opened in 1996.
"It's a huge catalyst to developing the Niagara region into the world-class tourist region it should be," said Robert Newman, president of the Niagara USA Chamber of Commerce. He said he is getting calls from developers who want to build in a city with 50 percent commercial vacancy rates and double-digit unemployment. For the first time in memory, he said, all 3,000 Niagara Falls hotel rooms were booked New Year's Eve.
"Hopefully, I'll be working here a while," said 18-year-old Randy Jimerson, a Seneca tribal member. Jimerson, a high school dropout, along with his twin sister and mother, are among the 300 or so Senecas hired for the casino's initial work force of about 1,700. They moved recently to Niagara Falls from the Cattaraugus Reservation, about 50 miles away. Other Seneca employees come from the Allegany Reservation, farther south of the city.
Jimerson is among 315 people who recently graduated from dealer's school, a free 10-week program offered by the Seneca Gaming Corp.
Sandra Ludwick, from the Allegany Reservation, who trained to deal craps, said the casino will be a boon to her tribe.
Pay and benefits
"There's just so much that the people need. I think it's high time we got started before we miss the boat," she said. She said the dealers have been told to expect $18 to $22 an hour, including tips and the $4-per-hour wage. "I'd be happy with $15," she said.
The jobs come with such benefits as health insurance and paid vacation. Some workers perfecting their dealing and dice-handling skills at a recent training session said they are happy the casino will allow them to remain in the region. Many had planned to follow thousands of others in leaving in search of work.
Yet some doubt the jobs will pay well and are skeptical of the casino's purported benefits. Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, a Democrat from Buffalo, doesn't see it as an economic development tool but as a way to drain local wallets.
He and other skeptics noted that U.S. Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton, while approving the project, expressed concerns about setting a precedent in allowing an American Indian tribe to open a casino on non-reservation land. Others point out that the land isn't in the tribe's aboriginal territory.
"It was clear that politics intervened," Hoyt said. "It was fast-tracked because once you open a casino, it's far more difficult to close it. Governor Pataki's contacts in Washington proved to be very beneficial in this whole process."
Brown doesn't buy such talk.
"The stars lined up. It had strong state support, it had strong municipal support," he said. "I think that helped. Not too often that people are supporting Native Americans."
Opponents within the tribe and parties suing the state to prevent the expansion of gambling are waiting on the sidelines. Susan Abrams, a Seneca who led the anti-casino faction, said the money and power behind the facility are too strong to fight.
She said the tribe's culture will be ruined, and doesn't trust people who say profits will be used to improve the Senecas' lives. "They're foisting this casino on us," she said, blaming Pataki, President Bush and the dominant tribal political party for satisfying their own agendas.
Albany lawyer Neil Murray, representing complainants on a lawsuit against Pataki over gambling, said he won't seek an injunction to block the Seneca casino's opening.
"We've got to fight the war, not the battle," Murray said.
Plenty of costs
Beyond the state's cut, plenty of costs will come out of the casino's revenues. The tribe, which paid the state $1 to take control of almost 13 acres and the former convention center, plans to develop more than 50 acres. A parking garage, a hotel and a bigger casino floor are envisioned over the next five years, although the plan must be approved in phases by tribal leaders.
The tribe must pay $22 million - in one lump sum - for debt on the property in 36 months or by the time its permanent casino is opened, whichever is sooner. It also will pay an estimated $2 million a year to the state for 13 Racing & Wagering Board inspectors and state police to patrol the facility.
Still, gambling analysts think the casino will take in about $300 million a year and be profitable within a few weeks. "I think he can do that," Newby said of Brown. "But there's a lot of hands out. The bottom line shrinks pretty quickly."