New York is a losing millions of dollars of betting tax revenue to its enterprising neighbor New Jersey. It’s also losing a fortune to illegal local and offshore sportsbooks.
This was claimed by the pro-sports betting lobby at a NY Senate Gaming and Wagering Committee hearing on Wednesday.
“We stand by and watch Jersey make money, but some of that is our money,” said state Senator Joe Addabbo.
New Jersey has raked in $2, 2 billion in betting handle in its first 10 months in the business. It was the first US State to legalize sports betting after the Supreme Court revoked a ban on it in May last year.
Today there are 15 sportsbooks operating in the Garden State. They including major players like FanDuel, DraftKings, Play SugarHouse, StarBets, 888sport, and PointsBet.
Addabbo, who chaired the meeting, is sponsoring legislation that would allow sports wagering on mobile apps in the ‘Big Apple’.
The hearing was attended by a wide range of gaming and sporting industry leaders. They included owners of land-based Casinos, representatives of professional sport, pro-betting lawmakers and app developers.
NY restrictions helping Jersey do “fantastically well”
“Jersey is doing fantastically right now,” Assemblyman Gary Pretlow was reported as saying by the New York Post.
“I know of people working out of Wall Street jumping on PATH trains to New Jersey and placing their bets. Then they cross the platform at Hoboken and go back to Wall Street,” Pretlow said.
It has also been reported that many New York residents have been cycling across the heavily congested brides over the Hudson River to bet. Once inside the New Jersey state line, they do it legally with smartphone mobile apps.
Under current state law, New Yorkers may make sports wagers in the state, but only in person at four upstate casinos. The closest of these is two hours away from NY city at Monticello.
Chris Grove of Sports & Emerging Vertical said New York would “hit a home run” if mobile a sports betting was allowed”. It has been found by the half-dozen states that already allow online sports betting, that 80% of their wagers come via the internet.
New York betting tax could generate $1 billion in tax revenue
Grove estimated that in three to six years total tax revenue generated in this way could surpass $1 billion. Furthermore, he believed 95 percent would come via online bets.
National Basketball Association senior vice president Daniel Spillane also endorsed sports betting after complaining about two things. The first was about the lack of regulation of illegal sports betting. The second was about NY’s loss of sports betting tax.
“The time has come for a different approach,” Spillane said. “We must give sports fans a safe and legal way to wager on sporting events. We must also protect the integrity of underlying competitions.”
Addabbo made it clear he believed legalizing mobile sports betting in NY would need the backing of Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Cuomo’s office has been saying for some time that legal online sports betting in NY would require constitutional change.
“We have constitutional concerns on this issue,” said Cuomo spokesman Jason Cornwall. “We have raised them for nearly a year and our position remains the same.”
