Mobile Sports Betting in New York Given the Go-Ahead, But No One Knows When
Listen up, New York sports bettors! Some exciting news regarding mobile betting just broke on the eve of Thanksgiving.
Late on Wednesday, it was announced that the New York State Gaming Commission (NYSGC) has finally put the last mobile sports betting rules into effect, which makes the concept of a mobile sportsbook launch closer.
That being said, no official launch date has been announced yet, and might not be announced for a while.
The NYSGC voted to license nine mobile sports betting operators: BallyBet, BetMGM, DraftKings Sportsbook, FanDuel Sportsbook, Caesars Sportsbook, Resorts World, PointsBet, Rush Street (BetRivers), and WynnBET.
Mobile sports betting is currently legal in only fourteen states: New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Nevada, Wyoming, and Colorado.
John Wolohan, a Professor of Sports Law at Syracuse University, says that mobile sports betting has really changed the betting industry.
“We’ll see a lot more people getting into gaming, whether that’s a good thing or bad thing,” he said, “I think how that’s going to change is–you don’t call your local bookie, now all I have to do is pick up my phone, get to my app and say ‘This is who I’m betting on.’
The problem of course is bookies will take your bets without your money. Whereas casinos, you need to put the money up before you can make the bets.”
This whole situation with mobile sports betting in the state of New York is a little bit weird.
Speaking purely technically, mobile betting IS legal for all these Thanksgiving Day NFL games, but there are no legal sportsbooks that are live to take people’s sports bets.
The state of New York’s bid process to license mobile operators took five months, with even more time taken to adopt and establish the finalized betting rules.
These final betting rules were published in the official New York State Register and officially became effective on Wednesday.
Now that these rules are officially published, mobile sportsbook apps are now allowed to begin their launching processes in the state of New York. How long these processes will take is a different story completely, though.
NYSGC Chair Joe Addabbo said that he expects New York bettors to be able to place mobile bets by or even before this year’s Super Bowl.
“You can pick all the providers and operators you want, but if you don’t have servers that accept the mobile bet and put them in place in the licensed casinos, and work out the contracts there and the programming of these servers, then everything else is meaningless,” he said, “I keep stressing to the [NYSGC] that I appreciate them being on time, but to be mindful that the servers are equally important as the gaming providers and operators.”
It seems like everything regarding New York mobile sports betting is still up in the air, but hopefully sportsbooks will be able to launch their operations as soon as possible so that bettors will be able to make bets from their phones.
