New York is finally seeing some life towards mobile sports betting. The Empire State is limited to retail sports betting, and the state has seen little discussion about mobile wagering.
The state of New York sees hundreds of millions of dollars being sent over to New Jersey with sports betting. New York City is a bridge away from place bets, and they have been doing so since New York has legal sports betting.
Now, the state starts to see some progress towards mobile betting thanks to Sen. Joseph Addabbo. New York casinos would allow single-skin for mobile sports betting, meaning that each location would have on sportsbook to work with.
Between the four commercial casinos and three tribal casinos, this gives some options for sports betting operators to take advantage of New York betting.
How Will this Work?
Sen. Addabbo wrote up Senate Bill S17D allowing casinos to have single-skin betting operations with sportsbooks. Addabbo states that it will be the easiest way to allow mobile betting to come to the Empire State.
“At first, the question was of the constitutionality of mobile sports betting in our state,” said Senator Addabbo. “But I think we’ve gone beyond the constitutionality issue because once you put the server that actually accepts the wager on the land of the licensed casino, you satisfy our constitutionality issue as well as the intent of the constitution.”
New York officially launched sports betting in 2019 but was only at land-based casinos. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has had no discussions of legalizing mobile betting since the push for it started last year.
Although the bill still needs to go through Cuomo, this is still a good push for mobile sports betting. New York would benefit greatly from it, potentially bringing in $200 million in revenue annually once the market matures, according to Addabbo.
However, single-skin use could limit the revenue that would be generated from sports betting. There is a strong chance that more than seven sports betting operators would want to take a stab at New York. Also, most casinos in the state have sports betting partnerships lined up, so it would be challenging for anyone else to enter the market.
Only having seven sportsbooks available could limit the Empire State’s potential, compared to New Jersey, who has dozens of sports betting operators in their home state.
However, if single-skin partnerships are the best way to legal online betting, then the state should take what they can get and work out a deal moving forward.
What Could Mobile Betting Look Like?
New York is facing one of the largest budget deficits in the U.S., thanks to COVID-19. Like many states, New York desperately needs to find revenue streams, which mobile betting would satisfy. Although online sports betting would not solve the deficit, it could take a huge chunk out of it.
Trying to pass one skin mobile betting per casino would be a step in the right direction by growing the sports betting industry. Once a bill is passed for it, state lawmakers would see how beneficial mobile sports wagering is for the state and continue expanding it.
Some lawmakers like Addabbo are confident that New York could have some form of mobile betting passed in the next few months. However, trying to battle with Cuomo to get that done is a different story.
