FIRST NEW YORK SPORTS BETTING LICENSEES COMING MONDAY

Finally, NY sports betting is taking a momentous step. The mobile New York sportsbooks that will be awarded sports betting licenses will be announced this Monday. The four month licensing process will be wrapping up with this announcement of the winning bidders.

The meeting on Monday will take place at 1:30 p.m. ET and the agenda has been published by the New York State Gaming Commission. This includes the Mobile Sports Wagering Consideration of License Recommendation. The meeting will also see the mobile New York sports betting regulations up for adoption.

Despite the announcement, there has not been a lot of excitement around this prospect. According to speculation, the two largest consortia should be licensed for New York sports betting this week. These are a consortium consisting of Bally Bet, DraftKings, BetMGM, and the primary applicant FanDuel Sportsbook. And a consortium of PointsBet, Caesars Sportsbook, Rush Street Interactive, Resorts World, WynnBet and the primary applicant Kambi.

The winning bidders will have their gross sports wagering revenue taxed at a rate of 51%. Another consortium of sportsbooks has been mentioned, but has not reportedly received the same paperwork to sign as that received by the expected winning bidders. This consortium consists of Penn National’s Barstool Sportsbook, Fanatics, and Kambi.

Barstool Sportsbook is especially a longshot after a Penn investor conference call last week. In that call, the CEO of Penn, Jay Snowden, expressed his skepticism about the New York mobile sportsbook market. He feels that it will be a hard marketplace to make any substantial money in.

However, the CEO of Bally’s, Lee Fenton, has a more optimistic view on the New York sports betting market. He feels that operators will need to attack the market strategically but that it is not a betting market that operators will want to miss out on. Though these are the viewpoints of an operator that is not expected to win a license versus an operator who is expected to win.

Meanwhile, the CEO of MGM Resorts, Bill Hornbuckle, has hinted that BetMGM will be launching in New York. He stated that it will be the biggest market the company has launched in with the MLife database.

Now, all eyes are on a potential launch date for New York sports betting. In the meantime, the booming New Jersey betting market and recently started Connecticut sports betting market will continue to poach New York bettors. And, they will be keeping those gains going for at least a little while longer.

At this time, there is still more work that needs to happen before the launch of New York sports betting. According to State Senator Joe Addabbo Jr., the timeline for a launch is reliant on when servers will be ready at the commercial casinos in the state. Two weeks ago, the state Senator reiterated that he believes legal Super Bowl betting will be happening in the state come February.

And, with this week’s announcement, this timeline seems more realistic. So, it looks like New York sports betting could launch at the beginning of 2022.

Written by Allie Nelson, our US Sports Betting Industry Expert. You can read more about our author's expertise here.