After a week of waiting and late-night negotiations between lawmakers and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, mobile sports betting legislation is finally in place for fiscal year 2022 in New York.
Online betting NY was included in the budget that was finalized on April 7. Now what?
Sports betting providers will be chosen through a competitive bidding process based upon certain scoring methods to balance revenue to the state. The state’s Gaming Commission will determine the best platforms and operators for New York long term.
The proposal authorizes the state’s Gaming Commission to solicit bids from interested platforms — a minimum of two — and operators — a minimum of four. Platforms that opt to partner with a Native American tribe or nation will be given additional points in the bidding/scoring process.
The application process for providers should begin prior to July 1, with a 30-day period for applications to come in and a 150-day period to select a provider.
So for the next 2½ months, some clarity, movement, maybe even changes will occur prior to the July 1 deadline.
Four sports betting platforms currently have brick-and-mortar sportsbooks at four up-state casinos: DraftKings (Del Lago), FanDuel (Tioga Downs), Bet365 (Empire Resorts) and BetRivers (Rivers Casino) and like to be considered the front-runners for mobile sports betting. But no decisions have been made prior to the application process and those casino agreements likely won’t factor into the selection process.
In Time for NFL Playoffs?
There have been reports that sports betting could happen during the NFL Playoffs in January 2022, which would mean all of the NFL regular season and college football regular season would be lost, along with the start of the NBA and NHL regular seasons.
The Super Bowl launch would be a reasonable guess as to when bettors can sign up, if everything goes according to plan. However, that’s a big if, given how the New York Gaming Commission has handled things in past negotiations and deals. Plus, there could be litigation to contend to from unhappy parties in the legislative process.
Many are pushing that sports betting gets completed prior to the start of the NFL, which begins on Sept. 9. The NFL postseason will begin on Jan. 8, 2022 (Wild Card Weekend) with Super Bowl LVI held on Feb. 13 SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, which serves as home to the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers.
The good news: mobile sports betting will be in New York.
How that will happen will be a wait-and-see approach and will need to be on an aggressive timeline to be in place during the NFL season.
