Online sports betting industry sees potential opening in New York

Proponents of legalizing mobile wagering on sports contests in New York say this is their time to get the matter settled after years of efforts. And they say it will happen in the weeks ahead when lawmakers might go back into session to figure out how to balance the state’s 2020 budget.

“It’s going to happen,” Assemblyman Gary Pretlow, a Westchester County Democrat and lead sponsor in the Assembly of the online sports wagering bill.

But there are a few problems supporters have yet to resolve, including:

• Lawmakers who believe pro sports leagues and gambling operators will make far too much money under the proposed revenue-sharing plan at the expense of proceeds that could otherwise be going to the state for budget bailout purposes.

“How many times have we heard that gambling is going to be good for state revenues? We OK'd casinos and then they ran deficits," said one lawmaker speaking on condition of anonymity.

• Lawmakers who believe the state is already home to far too much gambling opportunities.

• Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who has been steadfast in his belief that such a form of gambling can’t just be OK'd by lawmakers, but would need to be ratified during a multiyear constitutional amendment process that includes a statewide referendum of New York residents.

A deficit closer?
Talks have been underway among various state officials about the potential that lawmakers may reconvene to consider revenue-raisers – another term for “tax hikes” – to help the state close a deficit that is somewhere in the neighborhood of $13 billion. Those ideas, which include various ways to increase taxes on the wealthy and some corporations, are being floated to try to stave off cuts to public schools, nonprofits that provide an array of state services and health care entities and recipients.

All those talks are conditioned on one thing: Washington. What level of tax hikes or spending cuts Albany might need to make in its budget for the fiscal year that already began four months ago depends on the outcome between Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress and President Trump. The more unrestricted federal money that Washington agrees to send to the states, the less states like New York will have to cut or turn to taxes.

That’s where mobile sports betting comes in. Sports betting is permitted at brick-and-mortar casinos in New York – which, except for Native American casinos remain closed under state public health rules – but not through online means as permitted in a handful of states, including the border states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Right now, sports betting has its limits. This week, sports betting firms were taking wagers on Major League baseball games, though it is uncertain how long that league might play after the Covid-19 outbreak in the Miami Marlins organization. There were also bets for the restarting NBA. And, there were bets for everything from soccer and darts to table tennis.

The Senate and Assembly reconvened last week in Albany, but did not take up the online sports betting issue. Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie privately polled his Democratic colleagues, but did not move the issue forward.

There are three possibilities.

One: nothing happens this year at all on the topic.
Two: lawmakers take the first step to pass a constitutional amendment, which would have to be voted on again in 2021 before being presented, if it passed the Legislature, to voters statewide in November 2021.

But lawmakers say the deadline by which a first passage measure would be needed for 2020 is Aug. 3 – 90 days before the general election – and there are no plans to reconvene session before then. So, that idea appears dead, meaning the earliest chance the issue could go before voters – assuming two separately elected sessions of the Legislature OKs the idea – would be November 2023.

The third possibility: the betting authorization gets jammed into a revenue-raising bill enacted, possibly, in the coming weeks or months. Lawmakers could legally do that, and then Cuomo could legally veto the idea.