New York Lawmakers Have A Lot They Want To Change About Legal Betting

New York lawmakers seem enthusiastic about changing the state’s online sports betting laws. Wednesday, seven bills were filed, each of which on its own would significantly change the face of New York sports betting, and taken as a whole would dramatically change what is available to bettors and how operators treat them.

The bill that would impose the most change is AO 9636, which would eliminate everything from team and player proposition bets to over/under bets. The bill, sponsored by Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner, would limit wagering to "final outcome, score, or winner of a sporting event or contest.”

The bill was assigned to the House Racing and Wagering Committee, but no hearing date has been set.

New York law currently allows bettors to bet on a wide variety of markets for a single game, including traditional wagers like team or individual totals (over/under), team statistics, and parlays. The current law defines sports wagering as betting on "events or any portion thereof, or on the individual performance statistics of athletes participating in a sporting event, or combination of sporting events,” and this proposal would strike that section. It would also explicitly ban in-game wagering, in-play bets, and proposition bets.

Woerner also proposes to fine operators who do offer illegal bets up to $100,000 per violation. Additional penalties could include suspension or revocation of a betting license.

 Other proposals: Default limits, no limiting

A pair of bills authored by Assemblyman Alex Bores were amended and also assigned to the House Racing and Gaming Committee, though neither has a hearing date yet. A0 4280 would require sports betting operators to implement "default betting limits” on all accounts. The bills were first introduced in December.

The bill does not define what those limits would be, rather it leaves that decision to the New York State Gaming Commission (NYSGC) should the proposal become law. New and existing customers would automatically be opted into the default limit, but would also be notified that they can opt out.

Another bill, A0 9125, addresses another kind of limit. This one would prevent operators from limiting bettors "because the bettor obtains financial benefit or due to the bettor’s waging activity.” While the bill would generally ban operators from limiting bettors, it does allow for limiting if suspicious activity is noted or if the operator believes the bettor has a gambling disorder. Operators would be required to alert limited bettors within 24 hours of taking action, as well as explain why and connect the bettor with the state’s gambling addiction webpage.

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