ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) – States around the country realize what gamblers figured out long ago: The future of sports betting – and tax money to be made from it – is online. But they also recognize that extra tax money isn’t nearly enough to turn seas of red ink into black. That was the case even before the coronavirus pandemic blew huge holes in state budgets. Currently, 15 states, plus Washington, D.C., offer mobile sports betting, and several others are considering adopting it. New York is poised to become one of the largest markets in the U.S., passing a budget last week that includes mobile sports wagering after years of opposition by Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is expected to sign it.
More than 80% of sports betting in the U.S. is done via smartphone or computer, and New York lawmakers grew tired of watching residents drive, take trains, or even ride bicycles across the Hudson River into New Jersey to make sports bets – money that went to New Jersey’s casino and tax coffers instead of their own.
“New Jersey in January did $83 million in revenue; New York, which had its highest month ever in history, did $3 million,” said New York Sen. Joseph Addabbo Jr., who added that 25% of New Jersey’s sports betting business comes from New Yorkers. “The disparity between the states with mobile sports betting and those without is as wide as the Grand Canyon. How much longer can you sit back and watch the money flow out of your state into another?”
Important details remain to be worked out on exactly how mobile sports betting would work in New York. It could be 2022 – Super Bowl Sunday is an oft-mentioned target – before its residents can make bets online. Chris Krafcik, managing director of Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, which tracks gambling legislation, said seven additional states could legalize mobile sports betting this year: Arizona, Connecticut, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Maine, and Ohio. He said by year’s end, 20 to 23 states could offer it.
In 2019, experts predicted that 90% of sports betting in the United States would be done over mobile phones or the Internet in the next five to 10 years.
But two years later, we’re almost there already: Nationwide, 81% of sports bets are made online, according to the American Gaming Association. For the first two months of 2021, that figure rose to 85%. In New Jersey, the largest sports betting market in the nation, 92% of bets last year were made online.chief operating officer of Rush Street Interactive, which operates BetRivers.com and PlaySugarHouse.com in Pennsylvania, said 87% of his company’s sports betting is done via mobile devices in markets where both online and in-person available.
