No Sports Betting For New York in 2018

While it appears that the entire USA, gripped with sports betting fever, is rushing to make it legal in almost every state (New York as of now. Indeed, New Yorkers will have to wait until at least next year to be able to participate in this activity, at least that’s what the Assembly Speaker, Carl Heastie, claims.

This is purely due to the process of completing and advancing the bill to the next stage not being completed in time for this, even though earlier in June, Gary Pretlow, New York Assemblyman, did submit a bill for the legalization of sports betting with a royalty to sports leagues to be paid. But in order for this bill to be ed this year, it would have to be voted before the session of the state legislature is adjourned this week. Since there is very little time to do so, the bill would be put on hold until 2019’s session.

“I don’t know if a week is enough. Sometimes that can be a lifetime. But the broad spectrum of concerns raised, I don’t know if that can be resolved,” said Heastie, when commenting on the chances of a speedy sports betting legalization in NY. The only way to speed up the process is to add certain amendments to the bill including lowering integrity fees and limiting licensees to only one sports betting platform. This is being done by Pretlow and Senator, John Bonacic.

Pretlow himself commented: “I think that there’s time to convince people sitting on the fence. I also think the governor might want to take credit for this but I don’t think we’re getting that much [from the governor’s office].”