ALBANY — Though New York’s three new casinos are yielding less revenue than had been projected by developers, state regulators say it’s too early to use those numbers to gauge the performance of the gambling halls.

“It is entirely premature to give credence to any analysis of how well the casinos are operating,” said Lee Park, spokesman for the state Gaming Commission.

The state awarded licenses to the casino projects after New York voters approved a ballot question in 2013 that amended the state Constitution by legalizing non-Indian casino gambling.

The del Lago Resort and Casino in Tyre had projected it would generate $263 million in revenue in its first year. But the latest state casino reports show its performance so far is about 40 percent below the initial projections.

Also not hitting their projected targets are Rivers Casino & Resort in Schenectady and Tioga Downs Casino in the Tioga County community of Nichols.

Park noted that del Lago and Rivers opened their hotels in the past 30 days while a hotel at Tioga remains under construction.

He also noted that what will the largest of the four casinos to be licensed, Resort World Catskills in the town of Thompson, has yet to open.

A “better metric for analysis,” he suggested, would be an examination of the revenues when those locations are in their third year of operation.

But the performance of the three new casinos and a downturn in profits at some of the upstate racinos located at harness tracks has some in the industry suggesting that New York has hit a saturation point.

That concern is deepened by the fact that a large casino will soon open in Springfield, Massachusetts, while Connecticut is moving forward with a third tribal casino to be located in East Windsor, Connecticut, said Gary Greenberg, a minority partner in the Vernon Downs racino.

“There can’t be any new sites put into upstate New York,” Greenberg said. “It’s just too much. You would think that things would be strong for these casinos that just opened. But they’re not.”

But Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who led the push for the new casinos, is taking news of the slow performance at the three new gambling halls in stride.

“The variance with the projections doesn’t bother me that much,” Cuomo told reporters in Rochester on Aug. 22. “They’ve all been wildly successful in creating jobs and building beautiful complexes, really. They’re conference centers. They’re recreation areas. They’re family-oriented, so that’s gone very, very well.”

A total of 17 applicants competed for the four casino licenses that were awarded. Park said that competition “proves that there was and is a viable market for destination resort gaming in Upstate New York.”

In October 2013, just weeks before voters acted on the ballot measure, the state Division of the Budget said in a report that the total fiscal impact from new casinos would come to $430 million annually, including $238 million in school aid and tax relief.

Regional impacts were projected to include $93.1 million for western New York and the Finger Lakes, $16.8 million for the North Country and another $44.2 million for the Central New York/Mohawk Valley area, according to that report.

The chairman of the state Senate Gaming Committee, Sen. John Bonacic, R-Orange County, said the new casinos are already producing “much-needed job creation.”

“It is still very early in the operation of these three casinos, and I am confident that as time goes on, and Resorts World Catskills in Sullivan County comes on line, we will see an increase in revenues generated by all of these facilities,” Bonacic said.

But the fact that the new casinos are producing less revenue than anticipated doesn’t surprise Stephen Schafer, founder of the Coalition Against Gambling in New York. His group had made an unsuccessful appeal to voters to reject Cuomo’s call for the change in the state Constitution.

“My reaction is: ‘I told you so,'” Schafer said. “We could see the saturation coming in 2012 and 2013. But they pitched this with as rosy a view as possible.”

Park said the Gaming Facility Location Board “selected appropriately sized and scoped facilities in regions that could implement them as part of a greater regional economic development approach.”

That board announced its selections for three of the sites in December 2014. Cuomo later asked regulators to revisit the site choices and the Tioga site, already running as a racino, was added to the roster of casinos in October 2015.

Joe Mahoney covers the New York Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach him at jmahoney@cnhi.com