The New York Gaming Commission is looking to sponsor a study of the state’s fledgling sports betting industry, a project that advocates for expansion hope to use to make their case for the legalization of mobile and online wagering.
The study, currently in the request for proposals stage, will evaluate the desire for expanded sports betting and the potential impacts, both inside and outside the state.
“One of the major detractions against sports betting here in New York is that there is no appetite for it,” said state Senator Joseph Addabbo, who is leading the legislative push to expand into cyberspace what is currently a brick-and-mortar-only market.
The Queens Democrat got a bill through the Senate at the end of the legislative session in June authorizing remote wagering—including through affiliates at racetracks, OTBs and sports stadiums—but the Assembly’s leadership declined to allow a vote on a companion measure in the face of opposition from Governor Andrew Cuomo, who believes remote betting requires an amendment to the state Constitution similar to the one that cleared the way for expansion into commercial casino gaming in 2013.
While Addabbo and mobile’s backers in the Assembly wait to renew their efforts when the legislature returns in January, he’s looking to the study to bolster his argument that New York is losing out on tens of millions of dollars in revenue to neighboring New Jersey and Pennsylvania, where sports bettors can wager on their phones and home computers.
“We can no longer sit on the sidelines and watch as money that could be coming to our state goes to New Jersey and surrounding states that allow mobile sports betting,” he said. “I believe that we can simultaneously address the issues related to problematic gaming, satisfy our constitutional requirements and credibly develop a gaming industry plan that maximizes its potential.”
The 2013 constitutional amendment was codified in legislation that allowed the new commercial casinos𑁋and by default the state’s federally approved tribal casinos𑁋to operate on-site sports betting if the federal government ever rescinded its longstanding ban on it outside Nevada and in a limited way in three other states. That finally happened last May when the U.S. Supreme Court nullified the ban as an unconstitutional infringement on states’ rights.
Last month, the Gaming Commission approved regulations to govern the industry, making New York the 10th state with legal sports betting since the Supreme Court issued its ruling.
Two books are now operating at commercial casinos𑁋at Rivers Casino & Resort in Schenectady and Tioga Downs Casino Resort near Binghamton𑁋and del Lago Resort & Casino in the Finger Lakes and Resorts World Catskills in Monticello are preparing to join the fray in the months ahead.
In central New York the Oneida Indian Nation has set August 1 for the debut of books at its flagship Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona and its Point Place Casino in Bridgeport with a third to follow at its Yellow Brick Road Casino in Chittenango in time for the start of the National Football League season.
In the far northeast, in Hogansburg near the Canadian border, the Saint Regis Mohawk Nation is readying a fall opening for a book at its Akwesasne Mohawk Casino Resort.
The Seneca Nation has indicated it wants in on the action as well at its three casinos—Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel in Niagara Falls, Seneca Allegany Casino in Salamanca and the Seneca Buffalo Creek Casino in Buffalo—but has given no timeline. The tribe is mired in a revenue-sharing dispute with the Cuomo administration that’s winding its way through the federal courts. It’s not known what impact, if any, this will have on the tribe’s sports betting plans.
What is known is that until the mobile betting issue is resolved, sports betting in New York remains limited to wagers placed in person on casino property.
In Addabbo’s words, “It’s frustrating.”
“Eighty percent of tax revenue generated from gaming goes directly to educational funding, which means without having legal sports betting in New York with a mobile component, our children are losing out on hundreds of millions of dollars.
“If New York is serious about raising revenue, improving programs to address gambling addiction, create jobs, regulate the existing illegal sports betting in our state and increase funding for our students, then we must consider supplementing the current sport betting regulations with a mobile component.”
For Jeff Gural, whose holdings include the casino and racetrack complex at Tioga Downs and New Jersey’s Meadowlands Racetrack, which takes phone bets, the issue is “clear-cut”.
“That’s how horseracing works,” he said. “Ninety percent of the wagering on horses here is online. And somebody is betting either on their phone or at another racetrack or at an OTB, but the bet itself is transmitted and the actual bet is at the servers here.
“We’ve got to try to convince the state that it’s the same mentality. If it’s illegal to bet sports online, it’s probably illegal to bet racing online, and we know that’s not the case. So we’ll see. Hopefully that happens.”
