- The commission logged more than 240 comments on its biometric draft, the most on any proposal or pre-proposal.
- The draft would require biometric data to open an account and identification again before any wager is accepted.
- Existing accounts whose owners fail to provide biometric data within 60 days of an effective date would be closed.
- Biometrics stayed off the Aug. 11 rulemaking agenda, and no formal rule has reached the State Register.
SCHENECTADY, N.Y. – The New York State Gaming Commission logged more than 240 public comments on draft language that would require online sports bettors to submit biometric data, the most it has received on any proposal or pre-proposal, Executive Director Robert Williams told commissioners Tuesday. Most of them opposed it.
A Record Comment File, And What It Objected To
Williams delivered the tally in his report to the commission at its Aug. 11 meeting in Schenectady, saying he believed it was the greatest number of comments the agency has received on any proposal or pre-proposal.
Three objections recur in the file Williams described. The first is breach exposure, on the reasoning that a face scan or fingerprint cannot be reissued the way a compromised password or card number can.
The second is redundancy. Establishing a licensed account in the state already requires a Social Security number and a valid government-issued identification document, and commenters questioned what a biometric template adds to a record that already identifies the holder.
The third is access friction for adults, particularly the prospect of a failed scan locking a verified account holder out of funds.
Williams said staff is reviewing the language to reduce underage play without so intruding that it materially inhibits access for adults of legal age. That framing concedes the central tension in the file. The measures were drafted to stop minors from downloading apps and from using accounts opened by adults, and the objections are about what those same measures cost the adults who already hold legal sports betting accounts.
What The Draft Language Actually Says
The pre-proposal comment memo issued in March would add new subdivisions to section 5402.4 of Title 9 of the New York Codes, Rules and Regulations, the section governing duties of gaming operators. It reaches further than mobile sportsbooks. Horse racing account wagering providers and lottery courier services are covered by the same draft.
Seven obligations sit in the operative subdivision. An operator would have to employ age-assurance controls preventing an underage person from downloading its application, and in the case of mobile devices verify through the operating system that the device is not flagged as owned or possessed by a minor, blocking the download regardless of any age assurance provided.
The account provision is the one that drew the file. An individual would have to provide biometric data to establish an account, used to ensure the later user of the account is the individual who established it, and an operator would have to close any established account whose owner fails to provide that data within 60 days of the rule’s effective date.
A separate clause requires biometric identification before a wager is placed in a session and again before any wager is accepted.
Geolocation controls would have to deny access when a login is attempted from a device other than the one a customer customarily uses, or from a location the customer does not customarily use, unless biometric confirmation restores access. Operators would also have to identify and block account access when activity occurs in two or more places close enough in time that the holder is unlikely to be in both.
Two provisions run the other direction. Anyone over 18 could block their own Social Security number from being used to open an account for a fixed period. Operators would have to report users known or reasonably suspected of giving an underage person access.
The commission would also maintain an exclusion list barring anyone it determines facilitated underage gambling from every form of legal gambling in the state, including lottery, with winnings subject to forfeiture where state law authorizes it.
Gov. Kathy Hochul directed the commission to examine the question in her 2026 State of the State, including what the memo calls the use of biometric approaches. The commission announced at its March 16 meeting that it would consider regulations on underage play.
Still A Pre-Proposal, Not A Rule
The procedural status is narrower than the coverage has suggested. What the commission published in March was a pre-proposal comment memo, an informal solicitation on draft text, not a Notice of Proposed Rule Making filed in the New York State Register. Comments were taken by email rather than through a formal docket, and the informal window closed May 15.
Nothing binding follows from a pre-proposal. Before any of this could apply to a New York sports betting account, the commission would have to vote to propose the rule, publish it in the State Register, open a statutory comment period, respond to that record in an assessment of public comment, and then vote to adopt. None of those steps has occurred.
The Aug. 11 rulemaking agenda underlines the point. It carried adoption items on the Lotto lottery game, Millionaire for Life prize payment and surface changes in thoroughbred racing, plus proposal items on coupling, methods of furnishing information and licensing of non-managing owners in thoroughbred racing. Underage play prevention was not among them, and biometrics reached the room only through the executive director’s report.
For now, the account rules in New York are unchanged, and no operator in the state is collecting biometric data under any commission mandate.
What Happens Next
Williams said staff is working on a proposal for the commission to review at its next meeting. The commission has not posted a date for that meeting, and any formal proposal would start the State Register clock rather than end it.
