New York Delays Online Sports Betting Legalization once again

By Matt Speakman,
Betting Expert at online-gambling.com

Matt Speakman Betting Expert at online-gambling.com

A die-hard fan of the Patriots, Matt Speakman is an expert on everything related to sports betting and DFS sites. Over the years, he has proven a valuable asset for our team at online-gambling.com. You can find Speakman's professional tips and tricks in any of his many articles on the website.

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Last updated: November 13, 2019

New York lawmakers decided to gather at this week’s New York Sports Betting USA conference to discuss the possibility of legalizing mobile betting in the state, but everything indicates that the discussions will continue in 2020 as well.

While operators, investors, and legislators debated this important topic that is quite popular in the entire country this year, New York continues to be in a position seeing how competing states consume revenue while the state itself hasn’t made any progress regarding legalizing mobile sports betting.

Adabbo Believes that New York is Losing Revenue

Pile of dollars © PublicDomainPictures/Pixabay

Joseph Addabbo Jr., New York’s Senator who is known to be a huge supporter of mobile sports betting and gambling, finds this situation “embarrassing” for the Empire State as the New Yorkers who love sports wagering have to travel in neighboring states to wager in sports.

“We’re watching tens of millions of dollars go across the border to New Jersey and I keep telling the Governor’s people we have illegal activity going on here that we aren’t regulating – mobile sports betting.” – stated Addabbo Jr. in an interview for Gaming America.

Therefore, New Yorkers who love online sports betting would have to continue visiting other states like New Jersey and Pennsylvania to place their online sports wagers. The two states have already legalized online sports betting and already generating revenue that New York continues to miss out due to the unsolved regulations related to this topic.

In fact, New Jersey, which legalized online sports betting last year, at a current moment receives even 80% of its sports betting revenue as a result of computers and mobile devices. What makes things more interesting is that according to New York Assemblyman J. Gary Pretlow, even 40% of the revenue that the state of New Jersey generates from online sports wagering would be placed in New York if mobile sports betting was already legalized in the state.

Democrats Fear to Put the Bill on the Table

Despite the fact that the democratic party is holding a majority in both houses of the state legislature, democrats still haven’t made a step further and put the bill on the table as they fear of a veto from Andrew Cuomo, Democratic Governor.

At first, the commission was to choose a bidder whose task would have been to conduct a study regarding online sports betting in New York by August 12 and the study was planned to begin on September 1. However, the study’s findings are now scheduled to go public on April 1, 2020, and with that, the mobile sports betting legaisture in New York will definitely be delayed.

In fact, when taken into consideration that the study won’t be released until the state’s budget, chances are that online sports betting might be legalized even in 2021.

On the other hand, New Yorkers still have land-based sportsbooks where they can go and place their sports wagers while they are waiting for the state to finally solve this issue and legalize online sports betting so they can enjoy it from the comfort of their home as people from other states across the country including their neighbors, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.