4 New York Casinos to Open Legal Sports Books

New sports betting ops closer to home for Eastern Canadians.

Big things are happening in the sports betting world, and it’s so close to Canada we can taste it! On Monday, the political round table of New York passed legislation that gives 4 of its upstate casinos the right to open legal sports books.

While it’s not exactly the ‘new sports book next door‘, those casinos will soon be the closest we’ve come to having such wagering conveniences here in the Great White North. Soon enough, anyone with a valid passport or Nexus card can skip over the border to fulfill their live wagering pleasures in New York.

New Sports Betting Ops Just Across the Border

Word came down the horn yesterday that New York’s gambling regulators voted largely in favor of allowing four of its casinos to launch sports books within their properties. The NY Gaming Commission has been open to the idea since early 2019, when regulators first endorsed that particular item in New York’s wager-related legislation.

The four casinos whose owners surely spent the evening celebrating the news include:

• Del Lago Resort and Casino in the Finger Lakes, less than a 3 hour drive from Kingston, Ontario.
• Rivers Casino and Resort in Schenectady, 340km due south of Montreal, Quebec.
• Tioga Downs Casino Resort in New York’s Southern Tier.
• Resorts World Catskills in Monticello, the farthest from Canada, but closest to New York City.

According to sources, the state’s tribal casinos are also planning to implement sports betting, which could bring access as close as the New York side of Niagara Falls via Seneca Niagara Casino Resort, or just across the St. Lawrence River from Cornwall at the Akwesasne Mohawk Casino Resort in Hogansburg, NY. No potential timeline is available for those possibilities.

Legal Sports Books Coming by End of Summer

Don’t go hopping the border just yet in hopes of dropping your latest pay check on the Toronto Raptors to win the NBA Finals in Thursday’s Game 6. You’ll have to take your wagering dollars online to an international sports book for that one, because those four Upstate New York casinos won’t get their sports betting licenses for a few months yet.

Reports suggest those licenses won’t get handed out until sometime around the end of summer. I have no doubt New Yorkers will be placing their bets by the time the next NFL season kicks off in September; if not early enough for pre-season in the first week of August.

No Betting on Mobile or at the Sports Arena

New York’s legislators ran the full gambit when scripting a new wagering compact for the state. A bill was introduced that offered regulation for all sorts of sports wagering. So far, only the in-casino measure was passed, but there are more options on the table.

The government still has the option to authorize online and mobile betting via state licensed operators, as well as an option that would permit betting within sporting venues. No word on when a vote might be taken on those alternatives as legislators continue to debate the issue.

Fortunately for Canadians, we may not have access to single-event betting here in our own country, but we do have the right to wager over the internet with international sports books. It’s only illegal when offered by a Canadian operator that’s not properly licensed – and they can’t be licensed here because it’s illegal in Canada. There’s nothing illegal about betting with an offshore gambling website. So while it’s true, new sports betting operations in closer proximity would be fun and convenient, we’ll continue to get by without them just fine.