Group Advocates for Sports Betting at New York Tracks

A group led mostly by racetrack-based casino operators is pressing an influential state senator in New York to reconsider his new proposal to limit the entities that could participate in a sports gambling system in the state.

The New York Gaming Association, whose nine members include the operators of casinos at the New York Racing Association's Aqueduct Racetrack and Delaware North's Finger Lakes Gaming & Racetrack, said it supports the concept of bringing sports betting to New York.

But the group said a recent amendment to legislation authored by Senator Joseph Addabbo and Assemblyman Gary Pretlow—both Democrats who chair their respective racing and gaming committees in each legislative house—is unworkable for existing track-based casinos because they are blocked from participating in sports betting.

In a letter to Addabbo, who recently held several hours of hearings in Albany on the sports betting issue, the group said it now has "significant concerns" about the senator's plans to limit sports betting to four commercial casinos and Native American casinos scattered across upstate New York.

The letter from Michael Kane, president of the gaming association, was direct but a more gentle approach than the same group used in 2013 when it engaged in a major war of words with Gov. Andrew Cuomo about plans to legalize up to seven new commercial casinos.

"Without the ability of the bulk of our members to participate in mobile wagering, NYGA will be unable to support the expansion of sports betting and mobile wagering as presently proposed,'' Kane wrote to the senator. 

Addabbo has said the newly proposed restrictions to allow only the four full-blown, Las Vegas-style casinos to participate in sports betting was made as a way to address some constitutional concerns raised by Cuomo about the effort.

Industry groups see far more potential for profits if New York permitted sports betting over the internet instead of just the in-person wagering now anticipated to start later this summer at the four commercial casinos—located in the Finger Lakes, Catskills, Southern Tier, and Capital District regions; and the Indian facilities.

Addabbo said his first mission is to get online sports wagering legalized at those facilities and then push down the road to permit the racetrack-based casinos—called racinos because of their more limited gambling offerings—and off-track betting corporations to join in the system.

It's an uphill battle for anything to take place this year, especially with the legislative session pressing to a close in just one month, June 19.