New York could soon be home to a mega casino featuring flying car landing bays, a cryptocurrency trading floor and an expansive exhibition center.
Proposals to build a giant casino tower – named the ‘Mirai’ – where gamblers can arrive on flying cars, attracted the most attention from the bids for one of New York’s three gambling licences made in December 2021.
The state is ready to welcome on-site gambling to the Big Apple and there is already a fierce bidding process taking place for what are lucrative licences.
One of these bids is from UE Resorts International and Las-Vegas based asset manager Jason Ader. The Mirai promises to be a destination that “goes beyond casino gaming” and is expected to cost around $3bn.
But is New York really going to see flying cars zipping across the Manhattan skyline before the end of the decade? Perhaps, and a tower with facilities to park these cars would certainly interest city officials.
Is New York Getting A Flying Car Casino?
Of course, the fact UE included its vision of a flying car landing zone in its Mirai casino design caught the eye of many.
Flying car technology is in its infancy right now, with a prototype in Slovakia recently being flown for 35 minutes. But there is evidently interest in this technology and New York, according to Ader, is the perfect destination to reveal it to the world.
“If you’re conceiving of something in 2021, it’s for what the world will look like in 10 years, not two years,” Ader recently told Gaming America.
“This is a city whose tourism and economic conditions have suffered as a result of the pandemic, and Universal hopes to be part of the skyline in a way that brings New York back to its position as the number tourist destination for leisure-based travel.”
Whether or not the Mirai is successful is unlikely to come down to its flying car ports, however.
What state officials are more likely to focus on is the financing of the project, and the impact it will have on downtown Manhattan.
What’s more, promising to build a cryptocurrency trading floor could well tip the balance in UE’s favor. After all, the cryptocurrency market is not yet regulated in the same way as America’s established financial institutions, and there will be growing demand over the next decade to create universal mechanisms – including a focal trading floor akin to the New York Stock Exchange – to bring crypto to the forefront of the financial market.
New York Casino Latest
Of course, the Mirai proposal is just one of a handful of bids lodged last month. New York officials will now look over the plans and deliver their verdicts at some point in either 2022 or 2023.
Bidders include:
- UE Resorts International
- Las Vegas Sands Corp
- Bally’s Corporation
- Hard Rock International
- Wynn Resorts
- Rush Street Gaming
- Water Club in Manhattan
Interest in the licences has been high despite reports that New York could impose one of the largest casino taxes in the country on successful licence holders. The state has already begun approving sports betting licences that come with tax burdens.
Hard Rock, Wynn and Las Vegas Sands have been seeking to invest heavily in casino infrastructure – both offline and online – as the United States opens its arms to gambling.
A New York casino would be seen as a flagship for these predominantly Vegas-based brands, and it is potentially why UE and Ader have pledged to ‘go big’ with their casino proposal.
