Steve Cohen Uses Hedge Fund Riches to Become the King of Queens

Steve Cohen likes to boast that he’ll spend whatever it takes to win.

He did it over three decades building his $27.2 billion investment business, buying the New York Mets for $2.4 billion in 2020 and then assembling a team to win the World Series at such incredible cost — his $353 million payroll is the highest in MLB history — that rival owners dubbed a penalty teams must pay when their payroll exceeds a certain level the “Cohen tax.” (The Cohen Mets haven’t won a World Series yet.)

Now, he’s at it again in an effort to win one of the most lucrative prizes in gambling: one of three licenses to build a ...