New Yorkers waiting to gamble legally on their phones will have to wait a little longer.
On Sunday, New York governor Andrew Cuomo signed off on the state’s $175 billion budget, which didn’t include a provision for the state to enter into mobile sports betting.
In January, the New York State Gaming Commission authorized sports betting in the state's four private casinos as it was permitted to do thanks to a 2013 law that was activated after the Supreme Court overturned PASPA.
Many had assumed that mobile would soon follow, as plenty of New Jersey’s burgeoning sports betting handle has been tracked to the New York-New Jersey border. But Cuomo opposed the mobile option, which he has previously said would require a constitutional amendment.
New Jersey’s top mobile sports books — including DraftKings and FanDuel, which have already struck deals anticipating mobile betting in New York — all advertise on buses and trains that go from New York to New Jersey and back as well as on the New Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel that is one of the chief ways people travel to and from New York and New Jersey.
Nearly 80% of all sports betting handle in New Jersey comes from mobile — it’s why New Jersey has leapt so far ahead of all the other seven states that have legalized sports gambling since the overturn of PASPA. Some New Yorkers even are crossing the state border just to be able to be able to place a bet, going on trains to satisfy the geofencing requirements of physically being in New Jersey.
Mobile sports betting is legal in only three other states: Nevada, West Virginia and Mississippi (though it can only take place within the walls of a casino in Mississippi).
Missing the mark for the budget doesn’t mean all is lost for 2019. Mobile sports betting is expected to be addressed again.
