Gov changes mind to OK mobile sports bets
Let’s get ready to gamble. The state budget set to be enacted this week will legalize mobile sports betting in New York with Gov. Cuomo’s blessing — even though the governor long argued that such gambling would violate the Empire State’s Constitution.
The $212 billion one-year state budget, which was set to pass the Assembly on Wednesday before heading to Cuomo’s desk for a final signature, gives the green light for the state Gaming Commission to consider competitive bids from mobile sports betting platforms like DraftKings and FanDuel.
According to the budget agreement reached Tuesday, the commission will award contracts to at least two mobile wagering platforms based on a scoring method aimed at boosting tax revenue for the state. The state will be able to rake in as much as $99 million this fiscal year alone from levying hefty taxes on mobile betting, with the revenue expected to balloon to $500 million annually over time, legislators said.
Cuomo, who for years held that mobile sports betting would violate the state Constitution’s limits on gambling, on Wednesday painted it as a tremendous cash cow for New York as the state seeks to fill massive budget deficits caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The governor crowed, during a briefing at the Capitol, that “$500 million will go to the state, rather than a lot of middlemen who operate mobile sports betting, which is what many of the other states have done.”
“This is more like the state lottery, where we operate it and we get the resources,” he said.
But state Sen. Joseph Addabbo, a Democrat who represents parts of eastern and southeastern Queens, said New York’s at a disadvantage because it didn’t pull the trigger on mobile sports betting when other states did, like New Jersey, which legalized it in 2018.
“For me what was so frustrating was that every month we would get the numbers from New Jersey, so we watched the increase in New Jersey and knowing that millions of those dollars came from New York,” Addabbo told the Daily News. “We got to play catchup now. We were on the outside looking in. It’s an odd spot for us to be in, it’s a difficult spot for us to be in.”
Addabbo, who serves as the chairman of the Senate Racing, Gaming and Wagering Committee and has long pushed for legalizing mobile betting, noted that the state will now have to persuade New Yorkers who are placing bets out of state to return home.
“There are many reasons that we should have done this two years ago, but we move forward,” he said. “Now we enter an arena where we can stop that proliferation of money going out of our state.”
DraftKings, front-runner to which is a get a contract in New York, welcomed the imminent legalization of mobile betting in the state.
“We want to thank the Legislature and Gov. Cuomo for the progress made in bringing legal, regulated, mobile sports betting to New York,” said Griffin Finan, the platform’s vice president of government affairs. “We look forward to learning more as the process continues to unfold.”
Sites like DraftKings, whose customers mostly place bets through smartphone apps, will have to fork over some 50% of their New York profits directly to the state in tax, according to the budget deal.
The budget bill also sets aside $6 million annually for gambling addiction services and $5 million for youth sports in underserved areas statewide. Much of the other cash raised through gambling will get funneled into education in New York.
Aside from mobile betting, this year’s budget calls for a Gaming Commission review to determine interest in potential licenses for three new casinos near New York City. There is a moratorium in place on awarding casino licenses in New York until 2023, and Cuomo stressed that the review will be entirely conducted by the Gaming Commission.
“There’s a lot of money involved in casinos, a lot of lobbyists. There’s a lot of political contributions, and I want to be sure that any decision that is made is made purely on the merits,” Cuomo said. “And I’ll have nothing to do with a casino plan that can be politicized.”