Sports betting has finally become a reality in New York, but without the lucrative addition of wagering by phone and online.
It’s been 14 months since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a longstanding federal ban on bookmaking outside Nevada, and with the debut last Tuesday of Rivers Sportsbook at Rivers Casino & Resort in Schenectady, New York has joined eight other states in regulating the industry.
The opening was quickly followed 130 miles to the southwest with a planned opening last Friday of FanDuel Sportsbook at Tioga Downs Casino Resort near Binghamton.
The state’s other commercial casinos—del Lago Resort & Casino in the Finger Lakes and Resorts World Catskills in Monticello—will be joining the fray in the weeks ahead, as will the Oneida Indian Nation, which is partnering with Caesars Entertainment for sports betting at two of its three central-state casinos, and the Saint Regis Mohawk Nation, which has slated a fall opening at its Akwesasne Mohawk Casino Resort in Hogansburg in partnership with Canada’s the Stars Group.
“I’m glad we’re breaking grounds on sports betting, but it would’ve been nice to have the mobile component. But it’s a baby step,” said state Sen. Joe Addabbo, who has vowed to renew his push for mobile betting in 2020 after failing to win legislative approval for it this year.
The Queens Democrat, who chairs the Racing and Wagering Committee in the upper house, along with Mt. Vernon Democrat J. Gary Pretlow, his committee counterpart in the Assembly, point to neighboring New Jersey, which launched mobile and land-based sports betting a year ago, to argue that New York is losing out on tens of millions of dollars in revenue by refusing to allow consumers to bet on their phones and home computers.
New Jersey has booked more than $3 billion worth of sports bets in its first full year, more than 80 percent of them placed on a mobile device, with many coming from New York City-area residents making the short trip across the state line. FanDuel Sportsbook says one-quarter of its registered accounts in the Garden State belong to New York residents.
“Right now, Jersey is cleaning our clock when it comes to sports betting,” said Pretlow.
The Senate appears to be receptive to the pitch. Not so the leadership of the Assembly, where the remote option has never made it out of committee.
Sports betting was approved six years ago in the statewide referendum that amended the state Constitution to permit seven full-scale commercial casinos, four of them upstate, the other three allocated to the New York City area under a seven-year moratorium from the date the first upstate casinos opened. Under federal law, the approval was automatically extended to the state’s Indian tribes. But neither the referendum nor the enabling legislation that followed included remote betting, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo holds to the position that expansion into cyberspace requires another constitutional amendment 𑁋a lengthy and uncertain prospect that must go before the voters again and then win endorsement from successive sessions of the Legislature.
So, for now, bettors must journey to a casino to wager in person, effectively eliminating most residents of the Big Apple, for whom New Jersey is easier to get to than Resorts World Catskills an hour and a half away by car, or Rivers, which is about three hours away in the Hudson Valley.
Undaunted, Greg Carlin, CEO of Rivers parent Rush Street Gaming, believes his property’s 5,000-square-foot book, which features six betting windows, a lounge, a VIP area and 14 kiosks for wagering round the clock, will prove a draw in itself.
Managed in-house by Rush Street Interactive with technology shared with Pennsylvania’s SugarHouse Sportsbook and BetRivers Sportsbook in New Jersey, the book offers straight bets, parlays and totals on almost all major pro and college contests and in-play betting.
“We’re really not that far from New York City or certain places in Massachusetts and Connecticut,” Carlin said. “We have a beautiful hotel and property. People will want to come up and spend.”
