New York's problem gambling surge could spur new sports betting rules

And a solution to New York's lack of mental health courts across half its counties.

Good afternoon — It’s Wednesday and National Cat Day.

In today’s CapCon:

• New York could create new rules around mobile sports betting as the prevalence of problem gambling persists.

• Half of New York’s counties don’t have mental health courts. Prosecutors, public defenders, and bipartisan lawmakers have united behind a solution.

• Hochul vetoed a bill three years ago to stop for-profit hospice from expanding in New York. She’ll now have to consider it again.

• Bronx Day is back in Albany.

• Utility companies would be required to collect a surcharge from data centers to fund upgrades to the state’s energy grid under a new bill.

Names in today’s CapCon: Michelle Hadden, Carrie Woerner, Robert Williams, John McDonald, Carl Heastie, Liz Krueger, Amy Paulin, Rachel May

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(Charles Krupa/Associated Press)

🎲 New York’s rise in problem gambling points back to sports betting, lawmakers say

New York has a problem gambling problem and there’s currently not a clear plan on how to solve it.

It can be traced back to when online sports betting was legalized in New York in 2022. The state saw its largest single-year increase in problem gambling treatment that year.

“In the same year, mobile sports betting surpassed casino gambling as the primary reason for gambling-related helpline calls made by New Yorkers,” said Michelle Hadden, executive director of the New York Council on Problem Gambling.

That demand for treatment and the number of helpline calls increased again in 2023. The state hasn’t released all of that data for 2024 yet.

“There is no doubt that legalized mobile sports betting has contributed to these increases,” Hadden said.

That pattern of addiction has been lucrative for New York, which generated about $1 billion in revenue for the state from the industry through taxes last year.

Here’s the bigger number: that revenue is the result of more than $22.8 billion wagered via mobile sports betting operators in 2024. That’s more than New York state has in its reserve fund.

Mobile sports betting is popular. If you’re a sports person, you can’t escape the ads that try to pull you into their platforms. I’m definitively not a sports person and I’m still regularly exposed to them.

It’s a negative feedback loop. The more people who place bets, the more revenue the state earns. There’s not a financial incentive for the state or the mobile sports betting operators to intervene.

But there is a moral one, said Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner, a Democrat who chairs the Assembly Committee on Racing and Wagering.

Woerner, who co-chaired a hearing in Albany Wednesday on problem gambling and sports betting, said she is not “opposed to gambling and believe adults have the right to spend their money as they choose.”

“But when the state legalizes an activity and derives more than $1 billion in tax revenue from it, I think we have a responsibility to ask whether we have done enough to regulate an activity that can cause addiction and harm to New Yorkers,” she said.

When mobile sports betting was legalized, Woerner said, New York didn’t develop guardrails to address a potential rise in problem gambling. That’s now on the table given the uptick.