A new bill discussing sports betting could soon be making its way to the New York legislature. Legal Sports Report explains that the new law would expand the legalization of sports betting to the state’s horse racing tracks and off-track betting facilities. Sports betting is already legalized at the state’s commercial casinos if New Jersey wins its appeal to overturn the federal ban.
LSR reports on the draft of the bill, but points out that lawmakers could still change its wording before it is introduced.
Most noteworthy in the current draft is that the bill contains an integrity fee that is payable to the sports leagues. Lobbyists for bodies such as the NBA and MLB have been turning up the pressure on lawmakers in order to benefit from a change in federal sports betting laws. Recently, the MLB and NBA appeared to be lobbying together and at a recent hearing about sports betting in New York, they revealed that they would support legislation if some of their demands were met. They want new legislation to detect and prevent improper betting conduct, to pay 1% of betting handling to the sports leagues, to allow leagues to restrict wagering at their events, to include consumer protections for gamblers and to include internet and mobile betting.
New York’s new potential bill contains the integrity fee at .25 of all wagers.
The wording of the bill regarding the integrity fee is as follows:
“Each sports governing body shall be eligible to receive reimbursement for expenses incurred for integrity operations including monitoring, public relations and integrity investigations, up to of one-quarter of one percent of the total amount wagered at on its sporting events. This funding shall be used exclusively for expenses incurred by the sports governing body to ensure the integrity of its sporting events, providing such integrity expenses shall be approved by the gaming commission.”
The bill also allows mobile wagering and insists that operators share personal bettor information, and IP addresses if required by the leagues. Sports wagering data has to be approved by the sports leagues, while the New York gaming commission will be responsible for drawing up rules and regulations to put the new legislation into action.
