The sleaze never ends when it comes to New York’s gambling-addicted politicos and the fat cats who stuff their campaign coffers in the hopes of scoring big wins. 

The latest: Gov. Kathy Hochul (no stranger to overt pay-for-play schemes and other shady shenanigans) palled it up recently with billionaire/Mets owner/would-be gaming magnate Steve Cohen at a game at Citi Field — a hair’s breadth from the site where Cohen is hoping to build a gaming den if he wins the one license for a New York City casino. 

Cohen has already spent a fortune trying to make this happen: a million-dollar application fee; $69,700 to Hochul’s campaign war chest; $125,000 to the state Democratic Campaign Committee; $25,000 to the state Democratic Assembly Committee; more than $475,000 in lobbying related costs; $22,600 to disgraced ex-Lt.-Gov Brian Benjamin (talk about a bad bet).

For Hochul to be seen hobnobbing with Cohen is slimy optics, at the very least: a strong sign the gov simply doesn’t care about avoiding the appearance (at least) of corruption. 

And with her long and demonstrated history of what sure looks like baksheesh — the scandalous $637 million she shelled out in overpayments on a COVID test contract to a bigtime donor, for example — she’s long lost the benefit of the doubt. 

Cohen’s far from the only deep-pocketed plutocrat wooing Hochul and other pols on this front. There’s also:

• Real-estate titan SL Green, vying to plop a sin-den down in Times Square. Its chief, Marc Holliday, gave almost $70,000 to Hochul’s campaign and has enlisted hip-hop mogul Jay-Z as cultural artillery.
• Genting NY-Resorts World handed over $50,000 via lobbyists. It already operates a racino in Queens and is clearly looking to parlay its connections into a bigger score.
• Vornado honcho Steven Roth, also looking for a Midtown slot, gave the gov the legal maximum of $69,700. 
• Steven Ross, who chairs mega-real estate firm Related, also kicked in the max. 

Of course, most have (like Cohen) also given big to Democratic state committees and the campaigns of other key officeholders.

And plenty of other big fish are in the mix: supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis; Thor Equities founder Joe Sitt; Bally’s chairman Soo Kim. 

Remember: The license itself would cost at minimum half a billion — but, per the state, “an applicant may propose to pay a higher license fee.” 

In other words: let the bidding start, ladies and gentlemen!

Casinos are terrible investments from the public’s perspective. They fail year after year to generate promised revenues and — as with so many other policies beloved of New York electeds — do massive damage to the social fabric by jacking up crime and fostering addiction. 

New York’s entire embrace of casino gambling, in short, is all about the payoffs to the politicians — at the expense of the people they allegedly serve.