New York, home to the economic capital of the world and professional sports dynasties, has legalized online sports betting. Retail sports betting has been available at a handful of upstate casinos since 2019, but legal online sports betting has been unavailable until now.

Top New York Sports Betting Offers

The path to legalizing online sports betting in New York was bumpy, as most things are in New York politics. For years former Governor Andrew Cuomo expressed no interest in making things happen, and also dismissed the potential revenue from online gambling as a drop in the bucket. His tune changed in 2020 as COVID decimated the state’s revenue forecasts, and he worked with legislative leaders to come up with a compromise to bring mobile betting to the state that was signed into law as part of the state’s budget package in April 2021.

In November 2021, state regulators announced that nine sportsbook operators will be licensed to operate in the state, each paying a tax rate of 51%. This is far and away the highest tax rate in the nation, but New York is also one of the most desirable sports betting markets in the country, so the sportsbooks are willing to pay that high tax rate in order to offer legal online sports betting to the state’s 20.4 million residents.

After just about two months of anticipation, New York officially went live with their legalization of mobile sports betting on January 8, 2022.

This page has all you need to know about mobile sports betting in New York, which has now opened its digital doors for business.

Online Betting Begins in New York

Caesars Sportsbook, BetRivers, FanDuel Sportsbook, and DraftKings Sportsbook were the first four sportsbooks to ever go live in the Empire State, launching simultaneously on Saturday, January 8th, 2022, at 9 am ET.

How Online Sports Betting Came to NY

It took COVID to bring Governor Cuomo and legislative leaders to the table to hammer out an agreement on mobile sports betting. The pandemic hit New York harder than other states, and that also included a steep decline in state tax revenues. State leaders needed to find new sources of revenue, and mobile sports betting quickly emerged as a potentially significant money-maker for the state.

Originally, Governor Cuomo favored a lottery-run model that would be the only mobile wagering option in the state as opposed to a fully competitive, open model endorsed by legislative leaders. Fortunately for bettors in the state, he gave up that battle, but the end result still includes a lot of regulatory control and high financial hurdles for operators to overcome before going live in the state.

In the end, two applications that included the nine operators were approved. Each of the sportsbooks with an existing presence in the state due to their ownership or management of one of the upstate casinos were granted a license, along with a few others who filled out the requirement that each application include four or more operators. Each sportsbook also has to fork over a hefty $25 million fee before they can go live in the state, which is in addition to the also hefty 51% tax rate.

All this came about because of the cooperation between former Governor Cuomo and legislative leaders. The state expects to receive upwards of $500 million in revenue from mobile betting in the first few years of operation, so it makes sense that everyone found a way to get a deal done.

Sportsbooks Available in New York

While nine different sportsbooks have already been issued licenses to set up shop in New York, just four of them were cleared to go live on the state’s initial launch date. DraftKings, FanDuel, Caesars, and BetRivers are currently up and running. Four more joined in the following weeks, and Bally Bet joined the party in July 2022. Fanatics is the most recent launch, coming to the market in February 2024.

SportsbookNY Launch Date
BetRiversJan. 8, 2022
Caesars SportsbookJan. 8, 2022
DraftKings SportsbookJan. 8, 2022
FanDuel SportsbookJan. 8, 2022
BetMGMJan. 17, 2022
PointsBetJan. 24, 2022
WynnBETFeb. 4, 2022
Resorts World BetMar. 2, 2022
Bally BetJuly 7, 2022

Get to know this list. It will be very important to you as someone interested in mobile sports betting in NY. There may be more operators joining the above nine at some point, but it definitely won’t happen any time soon. This is it for now. Let’s go over each sportsbook in a little more detail, including their connection to NY.

Fanatics

Fanatics became legal in the Empire State in early 2024. New Yorkers who are new to the platform can take advantage of a generous welcome offer for new bettors.

DraftKings

Donovan McNabb cut the ribbon for the DraftKings Sportsbook at Del Lago, and the casino has been consistently busy ever since. Located in Waterloo, NY, it’s a short drive from Rochester and Utica and is a solid place to put down some money. DraftKings has been very popular in other states, offering decent promos and constantly updating/improving its app. DraftKings is a top sportsbook in every state in which it operates online, and for New York, it is no different.

FanDuel

Another name you probably know is FanDuel, which like DraftKings started out as a fantasy sports and DFS provider before branching into the real-money sports wagering market in 2018. FanDuel is the clear market leader nationwide, thanks to its Same Game Parlay feature and attractive mobile app, among many other things. FanDuel is live and ready to take The Empire State by storm.

BetRivers

Rivers was first out of the gate in New York, offering in-person sports wagering at their casino location in New York in partnership with Kambi and Rush Street Gaming. BetRivers has a great online presence in other states, and should captivate the attention of New York bettors with its incredible new user welcome bonus.

Caesars Sportsbook

Caesars Sportsbook has had a partnership with the Oneida Indian Nation since 2019, when its William Hill brand opened a sportsbook at the popular Turning Stone Casino Resort. The Oneida Nation owns a few other casinos in the state, all of which have Caesars-branded retail sportsbooks. As one of the better mobile sports betting apps in the industry, Caesars should have no problem turning The Empire State into the Emperor State rather quickly.

BetMGM

BetMGM has had a great deal of success navigating the post-PASPA sports betting marketplace, going live in over a dozen states with plans to expand to many more. It offers a great product and creative promotions. MGM has great plans to bring a casino and sportsbook to the New York City area but that seems to be a few years away. In the meantime, the BetMGM online sportsbook is one of the best options available in NY state. The platform began accepting bets in New York on January 17, 2022, just over a week after the state’s first sportsbooks launched.

WynnBET ESPN BET

Update: On February 13, 2024, PENN Entertainment announced that it had purchased WynnBET’s license to operate in New York. This means that ESPN BET, which is owned by PENN, will use that license to open up in NY sometime in 2024.

You’ve heard of the Wynn brand. Its hotels are a symbol of luxury around the world. Wynn is leveraging that brand recognition to its new sportsbook, WynnBET. WynnBET is live in a few states and is a pretty good product that is continuing to evolve and improve. Wynn has a huge casino resort outside Boston in neighboring Massachusetts, but as of now has no plans to build a retail sportsbook or casino in NY. Still, its online sportsbook has begun to gain many fans in NY.

Resorts World Bet

Resorts World owns a casino in the Catskills. The global casino brand partnered with bet365 to open a retail sportsbook at the NY location. This partnership seemed to be going quite well, but Resorts World ended up venturing out on its own, gaining a mobile sports betting license in NY while bet365 was shut out. Resorts World has a sports betting app, but it is not widely known or used outside of the company’s enormous Las Vegas resort. That quickly changed after RW debuted its app in New York on March 2. Now it is known to millions, but time will tell whether bettors will choose to use RW or go with a more familiar brand.

Bally Bet

Bally Bet was a surprise addition to the list of NY mobile operators. We expect big things from Bally Bet over the next few years. Its parent company, Bally’s, has been buying casinos all over the country and seems poised to make a run at the top mobile operators. Its product is solid and easy to use. We think Bally Bet will turn out to be a positive addition to the NY marketplace.

Sportsbooks at Tribal Casinos in NY

Turning Stone Casino Resort (Verona)

Home to The Lounge With Caesars Sports, Turning Stone, owned/operated by the Oneida Indian Nation, is home to a PGA-rated golf course and is by far the largest and most popular casino in the state.

Akwesasne Mohawk Casino Resort (Hogansburg, NY)

Home to ‘Sticks’ sportsbook, the Mohawks partnered with the Stars Group to power its sportsbook. The Stars Group may bring its FOX Bet brand to NY at some point in the future, but the brand was not one of the original nine selected by state regulators.

Point Place Casino (Bridgeport)

Same as Yellow Brick Road and Turning Stone — it’s home to The Lounge With Caesars Sports.

Yellow Brick Road Casino (Chittenango)

An Oneida Nation property, it also has a Caesars sportsbook.

Getting Started

Once you figure out which sportsbook you want to try out, there are a few steps you will need to take to set up an account. You will also need to abide by some guidelines, which are listed below.

Age Limit

A lot of entities have offered betting in one form or another in New York– there was once a time where 18+ players could flock to in-person casinos, but now the legal gambling age for all real-money wagering is 21+. You’ll have to provide part or all of your SSN when registering with a given online sportsbook to verify your age and identity.

Location

When registering for an account, you’ll need to make sure you’re within New York State borders. In every state where sports betting is legal, regulations require that the sportsbook operator verifies your location using geo-technology. You can actually sign up from anywhere – but to make a bet, you’d need to be within New York, or alternatively, a state where the sportsbook app you’re using is licensed and legal. A lot of the apps that may become available in New York will also be legal in New Jersey or Pennsylvania.

Because of this location restriction, you’ll need to make sure that you’re sharing your location (on mobile) or using an enabled geolocation plugin on your browser whenever wagering. You can check your account and make deposits, withdrawals, and other changes when you’re out of state, but wagering itself is limited to persons of legal gambling age who are physically in New York. You don’t have to be a resident, though.

Registration

Alright, you’re ready to roll. Start the process by clicking the links that will appear on this page with exclusive bonuses/promotions. The links will take you to the registration page, where you will need to download the app. Most likely you’ll be able to do this at Apple’s App Store (if using iPhone) or the Google Play store (Android). In March 2021, Google policy changed to allow sportsbook app downloads in the store. Previously, Google did not all, meaning users would have to download directly from sportsbook sites, allow phones to download from external sources, open a .apk, and install from there. Depending on the sportsbook, Android users may still need to use this slightly longer process.

Once you’ve downloaded one of the available online sports betting apps for NY, it’s now time to create an account. First off, refer to the above location section and enable location services on your phone (most legal sportsbooks use GeoComply); desktop/browser users will be prompted to download the appropriate geo-tagging plugin after sign-up. Then, the following process will get your online wagering account established. This process may differ a bit from platform to platform, but it mostly mirrors the following:

NY Sports Betting’s Tricky History

As we’ve stated, New York has had a complicated relationship with sports betting. There was a tug-of-war between the NY Legislature and the Governor’s Office for the better part of three years, with one side aiming to get onboard and online with sports wagering in the state, and the other being a tough sell on the idea.

NY Gaming Economic Development Act

While it took a while for NY to legalize online sports betting, the state was one of the first to prepare for a federally legal betting market. In 2013, New York passed the Gaming Economic Development Act, paving the groundwork to allow for legal sports betting should it become legal on a federal level.

2018 was the year that PASPA, the federal statute barring sports betting, was overturned. As New York already had the GEDA signed and established, it was a relatively simple process to start offering legal wagering at local casinos on an in-person basis.

2019: Getting a Foot in the Door

With the passing of New York’s 5329 Rule to the state’s constitution in 2019, four casinos were given permission to offer licensed sports betting services. Those casinos are now offering in-person wagering and also are licensed to offer mobile betting in the state.

2019 also saw joint legislation make its way through the NY government proposed by Sen. Addabbo and Assemblyman Pretlow, who were for years the biggest proponents of mobile betting in the legislature. Addabbo’s bill passed soundly through the Senate, but its counterpart in the assembly didn’t make it through to a review and died on the floor.

Even if the bills had made it through to Gov. Cuomo’s desk, at the time, it was unlikely for him to sign. But the drastic chain of events of 2020 and the economic downturn everywhere resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, led to Cuomo stepping back from that position, seeing the need for as many revenue sources as possible.

Desperate Times, Sensible Measures

The two aforementioned lawmakers never gave up on their aim to offer a competitive, open mobile sports betting market, and the clouds parted a bit with Cuomo’s 2021 Fiscal Year Budget proposal. In it, his office demonstrated a newfound openness to online sports betting, indicating that he could see allowing “one or more” online sportsbooks to operate in the state.

A reported $60 billion over five years is out the window in connection with the pandemic, and New York is looking for any/all sources to recoup some of that hit. Governor Cuomo insisted that a lottery-run sports betting model would result in the maximum amount of revenue for the state, while the legislative leaders held out for an open, competitive model. In the end, the competitive model won out with nine sportsbooks coming to the state. This is not a fully open marketplace with low barriers to entry, however, and it remains to be seen whether the extremely high 51% tax rate will hamper betting revenues. Still, it’s much better than a monopolistic, lottery-run model.

Which is the Better Revenue Generator? Looking to Other States

Let’s face it– Cuomo was never a big fan of gambling, and never saw what industry experts believed: that an open, competitive market could bring in beaucoup bucks for the state of New York. His claim that the state-run model is better “for the people” was not backed by the latest industry reports, and the numbers from states with similar models aren’t super promising.

Oregon, Montana, Washington D.C., and a few others have gone with the lottery-driven, state-monopolized model of online sports wagering, to mixed results. As compared to those states with competitive, multi-brand markets, the numbers hardly compete: Pennsylvania took in almost $71.6M in gross gaming revenue (GGR) from internet betting alone during December 2020.

Compare that with the similarly-dense Washington DC, whose lottery-driven system has proven to be lackluster at best for the district, with the Washington Post calling it “off to a rough start.” The general consensus among industry experts is that competitive is the way to go for both the state and its eager bettors.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is sports betting available in New York?

Yes, all forms of sports betting are now legal in New York! Mobile sports betting officially went live for the first time on January 8, 2022. In-person sports betting has been available at a few upstate casinos since 2019.

When will legal online sports betting begin in New York?

As of January 8, 2022, legal online sports betting is open for business in New York.

Where can I bet on sports in New York?

If choosing to bet on your mobile device or computer, New Yorkers can place wagers on sports with any of the following mobile sportsbook apps: FanDuel, DraftKings, Caesars, BetMGM, or BetRivers.

Looking to wager in person instead? At the moment, there are four in-person, commercial casinos offering in-person sports betting, with four tribal locations operating sportsbooks as well:

The four casino locations offering in-person bets are:

State and federal law allows for casinos on Indian land to offer whatever gambling is legal in the state without needing to forge agreements with the state government, but this does not give them the ability to offer online betting without legislative approval. Retail betting is available to users at locations like the Turning Stone Casino.

What types of bets are available?

New York players have access to pretty much everything a sports bettor could want, including bets on the moneyline, spreads, parlays, futures, live bets, player and game props, and more.

Do mobile sportsbooks offer bonuses for new players?

Almost certainly. Nearly every sportsbook will offer some kind of welcome bonus to get users playing. These include bonus bets that require no deposit, wagers that will net you betting credit if your first bet is a loss, and more.

Are online casino games and poker legal in New York?

Online casino games and poker are not legal in New York. This would require separate, additional legislation, and there seems to be little appetite right now to expand gambling in the state beyond mobile sports betting and a handful of retail casinos.