Jake’s 58 Casino Hotel, a video lottery terminal facility located in Islandia, New York, has broken ground on a $210 million expansion that operators believe will position it to compete even after other downstate casinos eventually open.

Jake’s 58 first opened in 2017, and is owned by the Suffolk County Regional Off-Track Betting Corporation (Suffolk OTB).

See also:

• New Jersey casinos
• Pennsylvania casinos

Expansion Will Add Amenities, Double Number of Machines

Currently, the casino offers 1,000 VLTs to visitors. The expansion will double that number, while also expanding the facility in other areas.

The number of parking spaces is expected to increase from 600 to nearly 2,000. The expansion will also include a conference center, an exhibition hall, a concert venue, additional hotel rooms and room for new restaurants. 

In total, Suffolk OTB says that there will be 300,000 square feet of expansion, along with 225,000 square feet of renovated areas. 

“The expansion and renovation of Jake’s 58 Casino Hotel will mark an exciting new chapter for entertainment on Long Island,” former state senator Phil Boyle, who is now the president and CEO of Suffolk OTB, told Long Island Business News. “Doubling the number of our gaming machines will only be the start of the great things we have in store for our customers.” 

For many existing gaming facilities in downstate New York – including Westchester County, Long Island, and New York City – such renovations would be used as a way to improve their odds of receiving one of the three downstate casino licenses that the New York State Gaming Commission is expecting to award sometime in late 2025. 

Expansion Seen as Alternative to Licensing Fight

But Jake’s 58 appears to be taking a different approach – one that avoids the $500 million one-time fee to the state that would come with any winning casino bid. 

“We’re not vying for one of the licenses,” Boyle told the New York Post. “As a matter of fact, I think that wherever those casinos are located, we are going to be able to compete very well.”

Since Jake’s 58 isn’t going to apply for a full casino license, that’s going to limit what it can offer in the future. The licensed casinos will be able to include true slot machines, table games, and other gambling offerings. They will also gain the option of offering credit lines to VIP customers and be able to stay open 24 hours a day.

But only one of the known proposals that is fighting for one of the three licenses is located on Long Island proper: a Sands proposal to bring a casino to Nassau Coliseum, relatively far from the Jake’s 58 location in Suffolk County. Two others – a proposal to expand Resorts World New York and the Steve Cohen plan to build a casino next to Citi Field – would be in Queens. The rest are further away in New York City, or in Westchester. 

Most of these casinos will also take significant time to build and open after licenses are awarded, even in a smaller first phase of construction. Boyle believes that this will keep Jake’s 58 thriving for years to come.

“I’m hoping that we will be able to have a ribbon cutting on the newly expanded Jake’s 58 before the other casinos even start building,” Boyle told the Post. “And we have a very loyal following.” 

(Image: courtesy of YouTube/SCExecutiveEdRomaine)