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Sports bettors in the Empire State can rejoice: New York will finally offer online sports betting. Unfortunately, the offering may not launch for months yet, possibly as late as the Super Bowl in February.
Despite allowing many neighboring states plow ahead of them in the rush for online sports gambling, New York legislators drug their feet to get the offering approved. Then, the licensing process began. Finally, the long-anticipated announcement of which companies would be rewarded with online sports gambling licenses was made just this week.
On the list is a conglomeration of some of the biggest names in the sports betting industry, a fact that has disappointed and angered some of the New York legislators who backed online sports betting in the state.
Two Coalitions Win Bids
The online sportsbook license bidding process in New York included two coalitions of companies that are well-known in the gambling industry.
The first includes Wynn Interactive, Caesars Sportsbook, Resorts World and Rush Street. Those four companies all are major players in the online sportsbook world and already operate online sportsbooks in other states.
The second coalition includes two of the giants in the fantasy sports world — DraftKings and FanDuel — as well as two veterans of the casino industry — Bally’s Interactive and BetMGM.
One person the state’s Gaming Commission passed over was Jay-Z. He had teamed with sports apparel company Fanatics to make a bid for an online sports gambling license in New York.
The sports gambling division of that company will have Jay-Z as its vice chairman, with the founder of Fanatics, Michael Rubin, serving as the CEO. The former CEO of FanDuel, Matt King, was also expected to play a part in the sports gambling division.
For now at least, that partnership won’t have access to online sports gambling in the Empire State.
When Online Sports Gambling Will Be Available
Even though the New York Gaming Commission announced the recipients of its online sports betting operator licenses, it doesn’t mean that online sports wagers will be accepted right away.
New York still has to work on testing all of the gaming platforms — even though they’re already available in other states — and approve all the technical details. Many in the industry don’t believe that New York will be fully operational for online sports betting until closer to the Super Bowl, which will be held on February 13 of 2025.
That means the state will miss out on a significant amount of revenue for the NFL regular season betting, NCAA regular season and bowl season betting, and most of the NFL playoffs betting as well.