New York has become the 10th state in the country to officially launch legal sports betting. Earlier this week, Rivers Casino & Resort in Schenectady opened and began accepting the state’s first legal sports bets. Other casinos in the state are expected to open their sportsbooks as soon as this week as well.
Rivers Casino & Resort began taking bets on Tuesday. They beat out the state’s three other commercial casinos, all of which are eligible to operate sports betting and are expected to open up soon.
Del Lago Casino & Resort is partnered with DraftKings and doesn’t have a timeline in place of when they expect to open just yet.
Resort World Catskills is located the closest to New York City (about two hours away) and is partnered with bet365. No timeline to launch is set for them either.
Tioga Downs is partnered with FanDuel. According to an email sent out by Kevin Hennessy of FanDuel, their sportsbook will be opening 2:30 pm EST on Friday.
Tribal Casinos
Under current compacts between the state and the tribes, tribal casinos are able to offer any gaming that is allowed at the state’s four commercial casinos. Therefore, tribal casinos can now open up sportsbooks as well.
As of now, the Oneida Indian Nation appears to be the first tribe that will open a sportsbook in New York. They could be opening a sportsbook at one of their locations (most likely Turning Stone) as soon as August of this year. The Oneida are partnered with Caesars Entertainment.
The Seneca Nation and the Saint Regis Mohawk Nation are looking towards launching sports betting as well. The Saint Regis Mohawk Nation appears to be ahead of Seneca Nation at the moment, as they announced a partnership with The Stars Group earlier this month.
No Change In NYC
While New York bettors located in the western part of the state have something to be happy about, for New York City bettors, it’s almost like nothing has changed. Bettors aren’t going to travel two or more hours to place a bet, especially smaller bets. Instead, they will continue the short commute across state lines where they can bet on their phones in New Jersey.
Mobile sports betting fell through in New York again this year. A late push was made towards the end of the session, but ultimately it fell through. Governor Andrew Cuomo is insistent that the state will need a constitutional amendment in order to bring mobile betting to the state. Some lawmakers disagree.
If that is indeed the case, that a constitutional amendment is needed, New York may be without mobile sports betting for at least another three years. In the meantime, New Jersey will continue to rake in all that sports betting revenue from New York City while New York tries to figure out its own constitutional laws.
If estimations are correct (that 10 to 15 percent of New Jersey sports betting handle comes from New York residents), New York is losing somewhere in the range of $32-$48 million in sports betting handle a month (based on New Jersey’s May 2019 numbers).
Assuming mobile is three years away from coming to New York, and those numbers hold true, the Empire State will lose somewhere in the range of $1.152-$1.728 billion in sports betting handle to New Jersey.
