So good he filed it twice: Addabbo goes again in NY

New York iCasino hopes, UK parliamentary debate date, Curaçao’s gambling bill confusion +More

Jan 16, 2024

Keeping a promise, New York Sen. Addabbo offers up a rebooted iCasino bill.
In +More: Missouri teams effort, Tabcorp in cashless hot water.
UK petition archives financial risk checks parliamentary debate.
Secrets and lies: Curaçao’s gambling bill confusion.

He's got high apple pie, in the sky hopes.

New York iCasino hopes

As promised, Big Apple Sen. Joseph Addabbo backed up his pledge of a rebooted iCasino bill with new legislation now before lawmakers.

Back in old New York: Addabbo’s bill, SB 8185, is a reworking of his previously unsuccessful attempt to legalize online casino in the Empire State. The latest proposal includes provisions for lottery sales, allowing New Yorkers to buy Mega Millions, Powerball and other draws via online purchases for the first time.

“I truly think that 2024 should be the year for iGaming and iLottery in New York given the fiscal situation of the state,” said Addabbo in a recent episode of the the Lawyers, Lines, and Money podcast.

New York has a major budget deficit, pegged at around $4.3bn, and the income from iCasino apps would be a significant boon, he said.

Having previously projected New York to generate $475m annually in tax from mobile casinos, the new bill more than doubles that estimate with a $1bn projected annual tax revenue, “based upon conservative market estimates.”
Addabbo added that he doesn’t believe legal online casino games would cannibalize retail casinos, stating it would be “a supplement to brick and mortar, not a detriment.”

Show me the money: Each casino or operator would be required to pay the New York State Gaming Commission a one-time $2m fee, and any independent contractor providing an operator’s iGaming platform and displaying its branding would have to stump up a one-time payment of $10m. In the first year, the state could take in $150m in these one-time fees, the bill estimates.

Around $11m will be set aside to fund gambling addiction help.

Revenues would be subject to an effective tax rate of 30.5%, compared to the digital sports betting (GGR) rate of ~51%.

For operators, resort casinos would have access to licenses, along with three federally recognized tribes that have a contract with the state.
Video lottery parlors that offer live racing and existing sports-betting operators would also be welcome. Live dealer studios must be housed within the state and have the unions on side.

Neighborhood watch: Bordering Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania regulate online casinos, and experts believe should the bill pass it could suck business from those states. “Massive! *if passed*,” said Rush Street Interactive data guru Andrew D’Armand. “New Jersey market would reduce massively in $ and relevance.”

D’Armand said the 30% tax rate “is way more digestible” compared to the sport- betting levy of 51%.
“Big name land properties will begin to materialize around NYC,” he said.

In November, New York set a countrywide record with $2.11bn taken in from sports bets. Some analysts estimated Addabbo’s numbers to be conservative, with projections the state could rake in $4bn+ in annual iGaming GGR.

Looks that kill: The next hurdle is the Racing, Gaming And Wagering Committee, which is currently scrutinizing the proposals.

Addabbo is framing the matter as a budget issue rather than one of pure betting law, and has noted that a final approval on budget numbers is required by April 1.
The bill would enter force immediately if adopted and, having failed before, few are taking it as given.
“We acknowledge getting iGaming legislation passed is difficult, often unpredictable and subject to the whims of politicians, lobbyists and other stakeholders,” said Daniel Politzer, an analyst at Wells Fargo.

“New York in particular has been slow to make progress on granting downstate casino licenses, so we would be cautious on getting too excited about NY iGaming at this point, but it could prove highly lucrative for both operators and the state, at some point in the future.”

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North America

Missouri move: A coalition of the state’s professional sports teams launched an initiative on Friday to get sports-betting legalization approved via a referendum. According to AP, the coalition includes the St. Louis Cardinals, the St. Louis Blues, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Kansas City Royals, and the Kansas City Current and St. Louis City soccer teams.

The initiative would allow each of the state’s casinos and six professional sports teams to offer retail and mobile sports betting, and two mobile operators to be licensed directly through the state.
DraftKings and Flutter’s FanDuel have each committed $250k to the campaign.
Twice as nice: Two bills have been introduced: one that would allow the state’s casinos to partner with up to three sports-betting operators and each professional sports team to partner with one operator; and another that would legalize both sports betting and VLTs.

Gritters: Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Rep. Andrea Salinas have introduced the Gambling Addiction Recovery, Investment and Treatment Act to create federal funding for preventing, treating and studying gambling addiction in the US.

The so-called GRIT Act would set aside 50% of the federal sports excise tax revenue for gambling addiction treatment and research.
The bill would also authorize spending for 10 years and require the secretary of health and human services to submit a report to Congress on the effectiveness of the program within three years of passage.

Global

Regulators have ordered Tabcorp to make most of its terminals cashless after under-age users were reportedly using electronic betting terminals to gamble.

Punters in Victoria, Australia, will have to show ID in order to buy vouchers with which to play the machines, following a new statewide directive.

French gambling regulator l’Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ) has removed 179 sports competitions from its list of approved betting events. The ANJ said the previous list had “lost its readability and consistency.”

The Dutch Gambling Authority has warned an operator whose logo appeared on a TV show in breach of sponsorship rules.

Untargeted advertising across broadcast media and newspapers is banned in the Netherlands and, in the next wave of the country’s crackdown, sponsorship of TV programmes will be outlawed from July 2024.

Maltese cross: Malta has pulled the plug on Genesis Global, canceling the operator’s license a year on from an initial suspension.

The Malta Gaming Authority has ordered the business, which had been operating 23 websites, to honor its debts to both players and the regulator inside a week.
Genesis laid off its employees in December 2022 and notified many they wouldn’t be paid as it collapsed into bankruptcy.
It is the third business to have its license pulled by Malta since the turn of the year.

Sri Lanka has received applications for 10 new casinos, according to the finance ministry. Under the new regulations, a five-year gaming license for one casino would cost $1.6m while the government also plans to increase the entrance fees to casinos as a way to discourage locals from gambling.

Sports integrity: The International Tennis Integrity Agency has banned Bulgarian official Stefan Milanov for 16 years after he was found guilty of a series of corruption offenses. Separately, the body has also banned French player Leny Mitjana for 10 years after finding him guilty of corruption and match-fixing offenses.

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UK affordability debate

On the agenda: The campaign to get the UK parliament to debate the issues brought up by the government’s plans to introduce financial risk checks for gambling transactions has succeeded, as the government gave a date of Feb. 26.

The petition launched by the racing industry exceeded 100k signatories at the end of last year, the level at which forces parliament to consider scheduling a debate.
The high-profile campaign was backed by the Racing Post and the Jockey Club.

Strength in numbers: Jockey Club CEO Nevin Truesdale said his body was “pleased” parliament had “recognised the strength of feeling on this matter.” “This is another great example of what the industry and its supporters can achieve when everyone works together,” he added.

“We are sure that solutions can be found to address instances of problem gambling while not allowing blanket affordability checks inadvertently to harm racing’s financial ecosystem.”
Meanwhile, Julie Harrington, CEO at the British Horseracing Authority, said “no other form of leisure activity is subjected to the kinds of restrictions being proposed by the government and so it is right that MPs have the chance to forensically debate this issue.”

Threat levels: At C+M’s Reputation Matters conference in November, former BHA CEO Nick Rust warned the financial risk checks as proposed represented an “existential threat” to racing.

He said financial checks are “a blunt instrument, a shortcut for those who don’t understand how to judge risk of harm in gambling.”

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Curaçao controversy

Secrets and lies: Curaçao’s minister of finance has released a statement to counter unspecified rumors surrounding the progress of the country’s new gambling law.

Minister Javier Silvania said the government was “all too aware of a significant amount of misinformation, confusion and inaccuracy” about the National Ordinance of Games of Chance (LOK).
The new law has faced a barrage of criticism from parliamentarians, the Curaçao Bar Association and an influential Advisory Council.

Check your sources: Silvania said he “strongly urges against the further propagation of unverified rumors or speculation.” “Full and accurate information can only be guaranteed when issued by either the ministry itself or the Curaçao Gaming Control Board,” the statement added.

“The GCB is acting on delegated authority from the minister in this regard and is fully committed to this process in advance of and until the enactment of the LOK, whenever that may transpire, and the GCB has my full support during this period of transition,” he added.

Incoherent: The Advisory Council suggested previously that the bill should be entirely reworked, expressing concerns that the proposed new regulator, the Curaçao Gaming Authority, might not be “sufficiently independent” from government and that a proposed fee structure was “not coherent or efficient.”

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