No betting for you in lower New York.
New York is joining the parade of states that will offer legalized sports gambling by the start of the 2019 National Football League and college football seasons later this summer. But New York is not going all in on the scheme. The New York City area will be shut out and there will not be any mobile betting platforms for the time being. Sports betting licenses will be limited to a casino in the Albany-Schenectady area, a casino in between Syracuse and Rochester, a racetrack near Binghamton and at a Monticello casino in the Catskills. Tribal casinos can offer sports gambling. There will be no sports gambling on New York college sports teams or at Madison Square Garden or the Brooklyn arena that houses the NBA’s Nets and at Yankee Stadium. There was some thought that those venues could host sports gambling but nothing happened. The four upstate casinos will be given time to develop a successful sports gambling business before downstate casinos, specifically New York City, will be allowed to open and that won’t happen until 2023. People in the New York City area including the nearby Connecticut suburbs are not shut out from sports gambling. It is a rather easy drive to New Jersey which has both sports gambling at the Meadowlands and mobile sports gambling once someone crosses into New Jersey. Connecticut is still figuring out whether it wants gambling but nothing is imminent.
New York will be joining Nevada, New Jersey, Delaware, West Virginia, Rhode Island, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Montana, Oregon and New Mexico as states with sports gambling. Arkansas is supposed to join that group as well after voters said yes to a sportsbook in that state. Tennessee’s sportsbooks will go online on July 1. The leagues are still looking for a piece of the action from an integrity fee as they like gambling and the potential money it brings in.
