New York State to Launch Online Sports Betting on Saturday

Four sportsbooks will be allowed to start taking online bets this weekend.

The New York Gaming Commission announced Thursday that four sportsbooks can launch in the state at 9 a.m. ET on Saturday. 

Five other sportsbooks were approved late in 2021. They will be permitted to start accepting bets on a “rolling basis" when requirements are met, per the Gaming Commission. 

"I want to thank the Gaming Commission for their efficiency in ensuring that these operators met all of the requirements to bring their mobile sports betting product to the people of New York ahead of the NFL playoffs," state senator Joseph P. Addabbo Jr., a member of the New York state Senate since 2009 and the chair of the committee on racing, gaming and wagering, said in a statement. "I look forward to the other five operators satisfying the statutory and regulatory requirements necessary to launch in the near future and working with the Hochul Administration and Gaming commission.”

New York has had in-person sports betting since 2019, though per the Action Network, the state has generated only $3.7 million in tax revenue at its four in-person sportsbooks, all of which are at least an hour from New York City.

Instead, New York state has suffered immensely from the concept of borderhopping, which in this case means customers traveling over state lines, most commonly to New Jersey, to wager on sports. 

“There really just aren’t a lot of other situations where you have that kind of population, a major mass that close to another state’s borders," Chris Grove, a partner at Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, a gambling research and consulting firm, told Sports Illustrated last summer. 

A recent study conducted by Eilers & Krejcik found that in 2019, New York residents wagered $837 million in New Jersey on sports bets, amounting to around 20% of the $4.6 billion handle in New Jersey

Last April, New York passed language in its budget allowing for mobile sports wagers, doing so amid an economic deficit largely caused by COVID-19. 

Addabbo told SI that the additional tax revenue generated from online betting will be allocated, in part, to educational funding, gambling awareness programs and creating jobs.

“We’re usually out front, but here we have been that wobbly car in the right lane and all these other fast cars, like Jersey and Pennsylvania, are whizzing right by us," Addabbo said.