Is Sports Betting Legal in New York?

Sports betting is legal in New York both online and in person. The market is licensed and regulated by the New York State Gaming Commission. Bettors must be at least 21 years old and physically present in the state, with geolocation technology used to confirm location. Online operators are taxed at 51% of gross gaming revenue, the highest rate in the country.

Is Online and Mobile Sports Betting Legal in New York?

Yes. Mobile and online sports betting launched on January 8, 2022, after being authorized in the fiscal year 2021–2022 state budget. New Yorkers can place wagers through licensed apps and desktop sites from anywhere inside state lines. Mobile wagering now accounts for nearly all betting activity in the state. For more on betting from your phone, see our mobile sports betting guide.

Is Retail Sports Betting Legal in New York?

Yes. Retail, or in-person, sports betting has been legal since July 2019, when the first sportsbook opened at an upstate commercial casino. Retail wagering is taxed at 10% of gross gaming revenue, far lower than the mobile rate, but the betting windows and kiosks are limited to upstate venues, several hours from New York City.

Who Regulates Sports Betting in New York?

The New York State Gaming Commission oversees all legal sports betting in the state, along with horse racing, casino gaming and the lottery. The commission was created in 2013 through a merger of the New York State Racing and Wagering Board and the New York Lottery. It licenses operators, sets the wagering menu, enforces consumer protections and publishes weekly and monthly handle and revenue reports.

Our assessments weigh the factors that matter most to bettors: the competitiveness of the odds and pricing, the breadth and depth of available markets, the quality and reliability of the mobile app, the transparency of bonus terms, the speed and dependability of deposits and withdrawals, and the responsiveness of customer support. Because all licensed New York operators run under the same 51% tax structure, differences in pricing and product quality are what separate them.

Why Bettors Sign Up With More Than One Sportsbook

Using multiple licensed books offers practical advantages. Comparing lines across operators, often called line shopping, lets a bettor take the best available price on a given wager, and small differences add up over time. Different apps offer different tools and promotions, and holding accounts at more than one operator provides a backup if one platform goes down during a major event. Our guides to sportsbook bonuses and fastest payouts can help you decide which to pair.

What Offshore Sportsbooks Are

Offshore sportsbooks are online betting operators that run from outside U.S. borders and serve American customers over the internet. The model dates back to the 1980s and 1990s, when bookmakers first set up operations in the Caribbean and Central America to take wagers from Americans, originally by telephone and later online. Costa Rica became an early hub because of favorable local laws, and other jurisdictions followed.

These operators hold gaming licenses issued by their host countries rather than by any U.S. state. That foreign license is what lets them argue they are operating legally where they are based. From the perspective of New York and federal regulators, however, an operator taking bets from people inside the United States without a U.S. license is running an unlicensed and illegal gambling business.

Better Odds and Reduced Juice

This is the single biggest driver in New York specifically. The state taxes licensed online operators at 51% of gross gaming revenue, the highest rate in the country. That tax pressure compresses the odds and pricing legal New York books can offer, because operators pass some of the cost on to bettors through wider margins. Offshore operators, with lower overhead and no New York tax burden, can sometimes post sharper lines and lower vig, and a half point on a spread or a few cents on a moneyline adds up over a full season.

Access to Restricted Markets

New York law prohibits wagering on any in-state college team and on any college event held in New York, which takes programs such as St. John’s, Syracuse and Army off the board at licensed books. The state also bars certain other markets, and lawmakers in 2026 were debating a bill that would ban in-play, or live, wagering entirely. Offshore sites are not bound by these rules and often carry college props, in-state college games, political and entertainment markets, and niche international sports that licensed New York operators cannot offer.

Higher Limits and Fewer Account Restrictions

Winning bettors are sometimes limited or restricted at regulated U.S. books once they prove profitable. Some offshore operators use different risk models and are more willing to keep high-volume or consistently winning accounts open, and to accept larger wagers. New York’s proposed legislation to cap deposits at $5,000 in any 24-hour period, still pending as of mid-2026, would add another limit that offshore sites do not impose.

Cryptocurrency and Payment Privacy

Many offshore books accept Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and stablecoins such as USDT. Crypto deposits and withdrawals can be faster than bank-based methods, and they offer a degree of financial privacy that traditional transactions do not. For bettors who value speed or discretion, this is a meaningful draw, though it carries its own risks, discussed below.

Credit and Familiarity

Some offshore operators and the local bookmakers connected to them extend credit, letting bettors wager without funding an account first. Licensed New York operators are barred by law from offering any line of credit. Long-standing relationships and habit also play a role: bettors who used a particular site or bookie for years before legalization sometimes simply never switched.

Confusion About Legality

A significant share of offshore use is not a deliberate choice at all. Industry research has found that a majority of offshore bettors were surprised to learn they were using an illegal site. Many offshore operators use professional-looking websites, describe themselves as legal and licensed, and mimic the branding of regulated U.S. books, which makes it genuinely difficult for a casual bettor to tell the legal market from the illegal one.

No Consumer Protection or Recourse

This is the central risk. New York licensed operators must keep player funds segregated from operating cash, submit to audits and maintain a formal dispute process overseen by the Gaming Commission. Offshore books operate under their own house rules. If an offshore site voids a winning bet as a claimed system error, freezes a balance, delays a withdrawal indefinitely or simply stops answering messages, there is no New York regulator to call and no realistic path to get the money back.

Withdrawal and Payout Problems

Slow, capped or denied withdrawals are the most common complaint against offshore operators. Some sites impose payout limits, add verification hurdles after a big win or process withdrawals far more slowly than deposits. Because no U.S. authority can compel payment, a bettor who is stonewalled has little leverage.

Ties to Organized Crime and Personal Danger

In a public service announcement dated December 17, 2025, titled “Great Odds, High Risk,” the FBI warned Americans to gamble only with licensed, regulated operators. The bureau stated that organized crime groups run illegal gambling operations, including online sportsbooks, to generate revenue for other criminal activity such as human, drug and weapons trafficking. The FBI also warned that bettors who run up debts with illegal bookmakers put themselves at risk of extortion and violence, and that illegal betting can expose bettors to further criminal exposure through tax evasion and money laundering.

Data Security and Fraud

Offshore sites are not subject to the security audits that regulated U.S. operators must pass. Personal and financial information handed to an unregulated operator may not be protected to any enforceable standard, leaving users exposed to identity theft and fraud. The FBI has specifically warned that offshore sites obscure their overseas status to give U.S. consumers a false sense of comfort.

Cryptocurrency Volatility

The same crypto banking that offers speed and privacy carries a hidden risk. The value of a digital asset can swing sharply between the time a bettor deposits and the time they withdraw, meaning a balance can lose real-world value independent of how the bets themselves performed.

No Responsible Gambling Safeguards

Licensed New York operators must offer self-exclusion, deposit and time limits, and links to state problem-gambling resources. Offshore sites generally provide none of these tools, removing the guardrails that help bettors at risk of gambling-related harm.

Tax Obligations Still Apply

A common misconception is that winnings from an offshore site are not taxable. They are. Under the U.S. tax code, all income is taxable regardless of where it is earned, including gambling winnings from offshore and online sources. Offshore operators typically do not report to the IRS or issue tax forms, but that does not relieve the bettor of the obligation to self-report, and unreported winnings discovered later can bring additional tax, penalties and interest.

The legal question has two distinct sides, and conflating them is where most confusion arises.

For the operator, the answer is clear. An offshore sportsbook taking wagers from people in New York without a Gaming Commission license is operating illegally in the eyes of state and federal authorities. The federal laws most often cited, the Wire Act and the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, target operators, banks and payment processors rather than individual customers. The UIGEA, for example, is essentially a banking rule that bars payment processors from handling transactions tied to unlawful internet gambling, which is why an offshore deposit by credit card is sometimes declined.

For the individual New York bettor, the practical legal exposure is very different. No federal statute provides a mechanism to prosecute an individual for placing a bet with an offshore operator, and no American has been federally prosecuted simply for wagering offshore. The Department of Justice and state attorneys general direct enforcement at operators and criminal enterprises, not recreational bettors. New York does not carry the kind of individual-bettor criminal penalty that Washington state does. The honest summary: the operator is breaking the law, the individual bettor is very unlikely to face prosecution, and being unlikely to be prosecuted is not the same as being protected.

Trust here is not all or nothing, and an honest answer has to separate the better-established operators from the rest. A handful of offshore brands have operated for two decades or more and have long track records of paying U.S. players, which is why some bettors use them without incident for years. At the same time, the structural reality does not change with longevity: even a reputable offshore book owes a New York bettor nothing that any U.S. authority can enforce. The protection that exists is the operator’s own reputation and its incentive to keep paying customers, not a legal guarantee.

The risk is also not static. Through 2025 and into 2026, state regulators intensified pressure on unregulated operators. The Curacao-based brand Bovada restricted access in more than a dozen states after regulatory pressure, and other offshore operators have faced cease-and-desist letters and fines from state attorneys general and gaming regulators. When an offshore book retreats from a state, the bettors left behind are the ones who deal with geo-blocked accounts and balances they can no longer reach.

New York authorities have made their position explicit. At the direction of Governor Kathy Hochul, the Gaming Commission launched a public-awareness initiative in 2026 under the banner “Unlawful Gambling = Risky Bets,” urging residents to avoid offshore sites, sweepstakes operators and unregulated prediction markets. Attorney General Letitia James separately advised the public ahead of Super Bowl LX to bet only with licensed operators. In December 2025, Hochul signed legislation banning the operation and promotion of online sweepstakes casinos and sportsbooks in the state.

The Bottom Line on Offshore Sportsbooks

New York offers one of the largest and most competitive legal markets in the country, with eight active licensed operators, real consumer protections and a formal process for resolving disputes. The appeal of offshore sites — sharper odds driven by New York’s high tax rate, access to restricted markets and crypto banking — is genuine, but it comes at the cost of every protection the regulated market is built to provide. If an offshore operator decides not to pay, there is no New York regulator to intervene. For most bettors, the safer choice is to stay within the state’s licensed market, where the money is protected and the rules are enforceable.

Key Provisions of the Law

The law sets out the core rules of the market. A bettor must be at least 21 years old and physically present in New York when placing a wager. Each authorized bettor is limited to one active account per operator. Operators must use geolocation to verify that bettors are inside state lines, must prohibit minors from wagering, and are barred from extending any line of credit to a bettor. The law also defines categories of prohibited bettors, including operator employees, certain athletes and officials, and anyone on a self-exclusion list.

What You Can and Cannot Bet On in New York

New York permits wagering on professional sports and most collegiate events, but it carves out important exceptions. High school sports are entirely off-limits, as is horse-racing wagering through sportsbooks, political markets, weather and entertainment outcomes such as awards shows or reality television. The Gaming Commission controls the wagering menu and reviews proposition bets, generally allowing those based on official statistics while scrutinizing wagers that could be influenced by a single participant. The most significant restriction, however, applies to college sports involving New York schools.

New York Bans Betting on In-State College Teams

This is one of the most important rules for any New York bettor to understand, and it catches many people by surprise. New York does not allow any wager on a college team based in the state, and it does not allow any wager on a college game played in New York, no matter which teams are involved. This restriction has been in place since the very beginning of legal sports betting in New York and applies to both retail and mobile wagering.

The prohibition comes directly from the statute. The Racing, Pari-Mutuel Wagering and Breeding Law defines a “prohibited sports event” as a sport or athletic event in which any New York college team participates, regardless of where the event takes place, along with any high school event. That definition was written into the original 2013 authorization, Senate Bill 5883, and carried over unchanged when the Gaming Commission issued its retail betting rules in 2019 and again when mobile wagering was added under Section 1367-a in 2021.

In practice, this means you cannot bet on programs such as St. John’s, Syracuse, Army, Fordham, Buffalo, Stony Brook, Siena, Manhattan, Marist, Colgate, Cornell or any other New York college team, in any sport, even when that team reaches the NCAA Tournament or a major bowl game. You also cannot bet on any college game physically held in New York, such as a tournament round at Madison Square Garden, even if neither team is from New York. The law carves out one narrow allowance: betting on a collegiate tournament is permitted as long as no New York team is playing in the specific game being wagered. A New York bettor who wants to wager on an in-state college team legally has to cross into a neighboring state such as New Jersey or Pennsylvania, where no such restriction exists.

The rationale most often cited is the protection of in-state amateur athletes from the integrity risks and outside pressure that betting markets can create, a concern shared by several other states, including New Jersey. Lawmakers have occasionally floated proposals to loosen the restriction, but as of June 2026 the in-state college ban remains fully in force.

The 51 Percent Tax Rate Explained

New York taxes online sportsbook operators at 51% of their gross gaming revenue, the highest rate of any major market in the country. Retail wagering is taxed at 10%. The high online rate was a deliberate choice to maximize state revenue, and it has worked: online betting has generated well over a billion dollars in tax revenue annually since launch. The tradeoff is that the rate squeezes operator margins and contributes to less generous odds and promotions than bettors find in lower-tax states. Operators were also required to pay a $25 million application fee, among the highest in the nation.

Pending and Proposed Legislation

Several bills could reshape the New York market in 2026. Assembly Bill A09343, introduced for the 2026 session, would ban in-play, or live, wagering statewide by removing it from the legal definition of sports wagering. A separate measure, Assembly Bill A7962, would add consumer protections including a $5,000 cap on deposits in any 24-hour period and tighter advertising restrictions. Other proposals would expand the number of permitted online operators beyond the current nine, potentially to as many as 14 or 16, and would legalize online casino gaming, which remains illegal in the state. In December 2025, Governor Hochul signed a law banning the operation and promotion of online sweepstakes casinos and sportsbooks. As of mid-2026, the live-betting ban, the deposit cap and the license expansion remained in committee.

Official Resources and Legal Links

Bettors who want to read the law and regulatory guidance directly can consult the following official sources:

• New York State Gaming Commission, Sports Wagering
• Racing, Pari-Mutuel Wagering and Breeding Law, Section 1367 (retail)
• Racing, Pari-Mutuel Wagering and Breeding Law, Section 1367-a (mobile)
• New York State Senate Legislation Tracker

Rivers Casino and Resort, Schenectady

Rivers holds a permanent place in state history as the site of New York’s first legal sports wager, placed on July 16, 2019. The BetRivers-branded sportsbook occupies roughly 5,000 square feet just off the main gaming floor and is among the most complete retail rooms in the state, with six staffed betting windows, 14 self-service kiosks, seating for about 80 guests, a 53-foot LED video wall and nearly two dozen additional large televisions. Its location near Albany makes it the most accessible full-scale sportsbook for bettors in the Capital Region.

Turning Stone Resort Casino, Verona

Operated by the Oneida Indian Nation in central New York, Turning Stone is one of the state’s premier casino resorts and pairs its Caesars-branded sportsbook with a full slate of dining, golf and entertainment. The betting area sits within a social-club setting with dozens of high-definition screens and bar games. It is a popular destination for bettors across central New York.

del Lago Resort and Casino, Waterloo

Located in the Finger Lakes region in Waterloo, del Lago runs a 6,000-square-foot sportsbook, one of the largest retail rooms in the state. It features staffed betting windows, around-the-clock self-service kiosks, a live odds board, roughly 1,000 square feet of LED video screens and a full food menu. DraftKings originally operated the book, with TwinSpires taking over in early 2023 after a change in the casino’s ownership.

Resorts World Catskills, Monticello

Resorts World Catskills is the closest retail sportsbook to New York City, about 90 miles from Manhattan in Monticello, making it the default in-person option for many downstate bettors. The sportsbook is operated by bet365, which runs the brick-and-mortar book at the property even though its bid to enter New York’s online market was unsuccessful. The room offers a modern setup within a large resort casino.

Seneca Sportsbooks, Western New York

The Seneca Nation operates three sportsbooks in western New York under a single Sports Lounge brand, powered by Kambi: Seneca Niagara Resort and Casino in Niagara Falls, Seneca Allegany Resort and Casino in Salamanca, and Seneca Buffalo Creek Casino in Buffalo. The three are similar in look and feel and are notable for a build-your-own-bet feature that lets a bettor assemble wagers on the resort’s website or app, save them with a QR code, and redeem them quickly at a kiosk. Seneca is the official casino partner of the Buffalo Bills, and the Buffalo Creek location in particular leans into local Bills and Sabres support.

2025 by the Numbers

New York’s online sportsbooks took in a record $26.3 billion in wagers in 2025, a 15.8% increase over 2024 and the largest single-year jump the state has recorded. Gross gaming revenue reached roughly $2.55 billion, up about 25% year over year, on a statewide hold rate of 9.7%. The market generated $1.32 billion in tax revenue, directed to education. FanDuel led all operators, surpassing $1.1 billion in revenue for the year, and together FanDuel and DraftKings accounted for 76% of operator revenue.

How New York Compares Nationally

New York accounted for nearly 16% of all U.S. sports betting handle in 2025, the largest share of any state. Illinois ranked second with $15.5 billion and New Jersey third with $12.2 billion. Driven by both its enormous volume and its 51% tax rate, New York generated more tax revenue from sports betting than any other state, by a wide margin. See how every market compares on our states with legal sports betting hub.

Where the Tax Money Goes

Tax revenue from mobile sports betting is directed primarily to education in New York, with smaller portions supporting youth sports and problem-gambling programs. Since mobile betting launched in January 2022, the 51% tax has generated several billion dollars in education funding, far outpacing collections in any other legal market.