New York state Assemblyman Gary Pretlow sponsored a gambling bill that became law nearly a decade ago that included the proviso that the state would be authorized to offer full-fledged sports betting as soon as federal law no longer prohibited it.
Within its first few weeks of offering mobile sports betting, New York had taken the national lead in betting handle, crossing $2 billion in just six weeks. But Pretlow is far from content, as he indicated during a 40-minute “Twitter Spaces” social media event on Tuesday.
“We should have been the first ones out of the box,” Pretlow said of the period following the U.S. Supreme Court’s May 2018 ruling that invalidated the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) that had become law 26 years earlier. That law had limited Las Vegas-style sports betting to Nevada.
Instead, New York didn’t even begin offering sports betting at its four upstate commercial casinos until September 2019 — more than a year behind New Jersey, Delaware, and several other states. The introduction of mobile sports betting lagged for a couple years more, finally launching in the state to great fanfare on Jan. 8.
“I am not happy with how some of this has been shaking out, and I’m looking to make changes,” Pretlow said on Tuesday.