The 2025 elections had an effect on several gambling problems, such as those involving casinos in New York and skill games in Pennsylvania.
Results of the 2025 election
The outcomes of the first election of US President Donald Trump's second term made the gaming sector in important areas including New York, New Jersey, and Texas very interested in 2025 and beyond.
On Tuesday, people all around the US went to the polls for the 2025 elections. There were a number of items on the ballot that were important to the gaming sector, including important contests in current or future gaming jurisdictions.
The casino industry was very interested in the New York City mayoral race since there are three finalists competing for three downstate licenses that will be given out by the end of the year. New Jersey, which is close by and has a lot of gaming, chose Democrat Mikie Sherrill to be the state's next governor over Republican Jack Ciattarelli.
Las Vegas Sands is keeping an eye on a Texas state Senate contest that is going to a runoff without the candidate they backed. And in Pennsylvania, the state's Supreme Court kept its 5-2 Democratic majority while the casino industry fights in court against so-called skill games.
Mamdani is the largest news story of the 2025 elections.
Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, easily beat former New York governor Andrew Cuomo and long-time political activist Curtis Sliwa in the election. There are many reasons why Mamdani's election as mayor of NYC is important.
He is the first Muslim to be mayor of the city and the youngest mayor in more than 100 years. He is 34 years old. His far-left proposals have upset the business and financial industries in the city because he wants to pay for most of his plans by raising taxes on the richest New Yorkers and businesses.
Bally's Bronx, Resorts World NYC, and Metropolitan Park are all downstate casino finalists. They are all planning multibillion-dollar projects that could be affected by Mamdani's politics.
Outgoing mayor Eric Adams, who dropped out of the contest in September, helped Bally's bid a lot. Steve Cohen, a big supporter to the Democratic Party that Mamdani is a member of, is behind the Metropolitan Park project, which is the biggest one at $8 billion. But Cohen has mostly worked with Governor Kathy Hochul, who at first didn't support Mamdani but later did.
Mamdani is against gambling because it is against his religion as a Muslim. But he is indifferent about the downstate process, with the exception that it is mostly out of his hands.
Mamdani told The New York Times in August, "I've been honest about my doubts, but I also know this is the law." "The state is in charge of where the casinos will be built and which ones will open."
Mamdani was a member of the state Assembly from 2020 until he ran for mayor. His district was in Queens, where the proposals for the Metropolitan Park and Resorts World downstate are located. Resorts World is going above and above to get a licence by proposing the highest licence price ($600 million) and tax rates (56% for slots and 30% for tables). In contrast, Cohen and Metropolitan Park are proposing the lowest tax rates (25% for slots and 10% for tables) and license fees ($500 million).
As governor of New York, Cuomo supervised a big increase in gambling.
The gaming business might have liked it better if Cuomo had won, as he had already made the industry bigger.
Proposal 1, which allowed for a total of seven commercial casino licenses across the state, was supported by voters in 2013 when Cuomo was governor. Four licenses were given out in the upstate in 2014–15, leaving three licenses still available in the current downstate procedure.
Cuomo was also governor when New York made online sports betting legal in early 2021. He quit in August of that year, partly due of a sexual harassment controversy. Cuomo was in charge of the online sports betting procedure in New York and made it plain that he would only sign a strong tax rate. The bidders finally suggested a 51% tax rate, which is the highest in the country. This made New York the top OSB market in the US in terms of volume and tax revenue.
New Jersey's new governor takes over a big US market
New Jersey is one of the biggest gambling states in the US, and the growth of casinos in New York will probably have an influence on the state. Phil Murphy, the outgoing governor of New Jersey, has been in charge of many gaming-related changes in the state since he was elected in 2017.
The new Sherrill may have to deal with three main gaming challenges during the next four years.
Indoor smoking at casinos is the first and maybe most controversial issue. Casino Employees Against Smoking Effects and Americans for Non-Smokers' Rights (ANR) are two advocacy groups that are fighting hard in New Jersey. Murphy indicated he would sign a measure to outlaw smoking if it got to him, but none did because the casino lobby has been able to hold off so far.
Sherrill claimed at an event in 2024 that people who wanted to allow smoking in casinos were "having a weird fight." ANR liked that idea, but Sherrill didn't say anything about it publicly during the campaign for governor.
The other two challenges in the Garden State are tax rates and the growth of casinos. Officials in New Jersey have suggested that casinos should be able to grow beyond Atlantic City, but this concept has not yet gained support. But that could change a lot during Sherrill's time in office when the New York expansion starts.
Sherrill is taking office right after Murphy pushed for a tax rate rise. This year, the tax rates for sports betting and iGaming in New Jersey went up from 13% and 15% to 19.75%. Murphy first suggested rates of 25%.
Sherrill probably won't fight for more raises right away, but other states, including Illinois and Ohio, have seen several increases approved or proposed in a short amount of time.
Again, Sands' dreams for Texas fail in the 2025 election results.
Texas is very different from New York and New Jersey, but it has also been dealing with casino expansion for a long time. Las Vegas Sands has set its sights on Texas as its next gambling destination that hasn't been fully explored yet. Miriam Adelson, the majority shareholder of Sands, has been a big player in Texas politics for numerous cycles. She also bought the Dallas Mavericks NBA team in 2023 and made Sands COO Patrick Dumont the governor.
Earlier this year, the business was pushing aggressively for a possible casino-resort construction in Irving, a Dallas suburb. The project just got the go-ahead from local zoning boards, but Sands took out the casino part after a lot of opposition from residents and tribal gambling interests in nearby states. Also, anti-gaming officials this year severely cut back on advances that had been made in the state legislature in the past. The Texas legislature won't meet again until 2027.
Adelson nevertheless spent a lot of money in the 2025 elections. For example, she gave $1.2 million to John Huffman to help him win the Senate District 9 seat. According to NBC Dallas, a connected interest organisation gave an extra $2 million. Conservative groups, like Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who controls the Senate and has stopped other gambling-related bills from becoming law, paid for Huffman's opponent, Leigh Wambsganss.
In the end, Democrat Taylor Rehmet got the most votes (48%). Wambsganss came in second with 36% of the vote, and Huffman came in third with only 16%. Rehmet didn't get a majority, thus he and Wambsganss will have to hold a runoff election at a later date. Huffman was completely ignored, which was another blow to Sands' attempts in Texas.
The Pennsylvania court that decided in favour of skill games upheld
Finally, people who work in Pennsylvania's gambling industry were paying attention to the elections for three state Supreme Court justice positions. All three Democratic incumbents—Justices Christine Donohue, Kevin Dougherty, and David Wecht—kept their jobs, which means the party will still have a majority on the court. Wecht and Dougherty got fresh ten-year terms, while Donohue will have to retire in 2027 when she turns 65.
State casinos may be worried about this because they have been fighting for years against the spread of "skill games," which are unregulated slot-like games in small enterprises. But the Supreme Court and other state courts have ruled in favour of skill games and their makers several times.
In March, the Supreme Court said that state gaming authorities were wrong to reject gaming licenses to enterprises that offered skill games. Regulators said that this kind of behaviour went against a "good character" condition in the application for a licence. The court didn't agree and mostly stayed away from the issue of whether skill games are allowed.
According to the Altoona Mirror, Wecht said that businesses may feel that skill games were legal because of "court rulings" and "the statements of the device manufacturers and their lawyers."
Wecht went on to say, "In this situation, it's understandable that these people think they're not doing anything wrong." So, it is too much and unreasonable for the board to say that everyone who works in this field lacks "good character, honesty, and integrity" just because they work in it.
