At the first debate over the resort casinos bill, Colin Au, head of Genting Americas, made some extravagant promises to Florida legislators. Au claims that the bill, which calls for three large resort casinos to be built in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, will create numerous employment opportunities; yet, legislators and Miami residents alike worry that the new jobs won’t make up for all of the restaurants and hotels that may be put out of business if the bill passes.

Colin Au, president of Genting Americas, and Carlos Giminez, Miami-Dade mayor.

During the two-hour debate, Au did his best to pitch the bill, guaranteeing such things as non-stop flights fro Asia to Miami, $1.7 billion new revenue to the state, the purchase of 100,000 Disney World tickets for resort patrons and upwards of 100,000 new jobs created for Miami, says a recent article featured in The Miami Herald.

As can be expected, many of the potential competitors to the Genting casinos spoke out against the bill. However, the most shocking adversary to Au’s sales pitch was Senator Ellyn Bogdanoff–the bill’s sponsor.

“They actually kill their own case because, based on what they want to do, they’re going to put all the pari-mutuels out of business and every restaurant in Miami — and a couple hotels too,’’ said Bogdanoff of Au’s promises, particularly the promise of new jobs. Bogdanoff claims that numbers for the economic potential of the resorts proposed in the bill are “over the top.”

Au presented to committee members a one-page summary of an economic study commissioned by Genting which forecast gambling revenue from the three resorts between $4.3 billion and $6 billion a year. To put these numbers into perspective, the Las Vegas Strip, the well-known hub of American gambling, racked up a revenue of $5.7 billion last year.

Comparatively, Andy Abboud, Las Vegas Sands Vice President, claims that a preliminary report conducted by state economists last week predicted that the revenue would be closer to $980 million–quite a bit lower than Au’s prediction.

Donn Mitchell, chief administrative officer for Isle of Capri Casino in Pompano, told the committee that if the bill passes without allowing existing pari-mutuels to operate the same games under the same tax rate as the new casinos, Florida’s casino industry will die and the state will lose 15,000 jobs and $154 million worth of tax revenues.

“There is going to be significant cannibalization of existing facilities,” Mitchell warned.

When presented with the complaint that the 19,000 gaming jobs his company promises to bring to Florida will actually be filled by Atlantic City or Las Vegas workers, Au responded with “That’s bulls—,” and told lawmakers that if the bill passes it will produce revenues of $9 billion a year and will create 50,000 construction jobs and 100,000 permanent jobs between the casinos and resorts filled with restaurants and shops.