New York Considers Lowering Age for Fantasy Sports Betting

SportsGrid

Watch New York Considers Lowering Age for Fantasy Sports Betting - SportsGrid on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00Sam, let's bring him on. Let's talk about New York here a little bit as if it isn't

00:09enough that New York gets 50% of all the tax revenue that is coming in. Senator Joe Adabo

00:16is like, hey, how can we make some more money here on sports and sports betting? Well, let's

00:21go to the DFS operators and say, you know what? What about some extra hundreds of millions

00:27of dollars if we change the age requirement here? Oh, my gosh. I mean, this is greed

00:32at this point. I mean, come on. So they go down. They're trying to go down here from

00:3521 years old to 18 years old. Can you imagine, Sam, how many kids are going to be playing

00:39daily fantasy at 18? I would imagine that number will grow exponentially.

00:44Yeah, definitely, Craig. It's a great setup for a state that's been all about money when

00:50it comes to sports betting. Now it looks like fantasy sports as well. Obviously, like you

00:54mentioned, they have the nation high 51% tax on betting, which a lot of companies like

00:59DraftKings and FanDuel have come out and said, wow, that's really high. We really hope you

01:04would lower it. There have been some attempts to lower it through the legislature. But what

01:08seems like we'll have a better chance is a bill that will actually generate the state

01:12more money. So now we're looking at the fantasy sports industry, which has been a really hot

01:16topic this past year, especially those games that kind of blend sports betting and fantasy

01:21together. Are they parlays? Are they player props? Some states think so. Some say yes,

01:27some say no. But in New York, they're trying to lower the age, like you said, from 21 to

01:3118 to play those games in an effort they think will generate the state $150 million more

01:38dollars in revenue a year. Now, when I first came across this, I was kind of wondering

01:43how lowering the age would generate that much more money. Obviously, you're going to get

01:47more players, but it would also add this one time fee that operators would pay, which

01:53would be $5 million a year to basically register with the state and stay as a fantasy sports

01:58operator. Currently, there are fantasy sports operators in the state. They don't really

02:02pay fees anywhere close to that size or taxes close close to that size for that matter.

02:07So this seems like kind of an effort to get it more on the playing field with what sports

02:11betting operators pay in the state. They'd also pay about one percent of their gross

02:16gaming revenue every five years. So that's kind of where the money is coming from here.

02:21It would also basically put in place that you can't have those player versus house games that

02:27the state has cracked down against, you know, games like prize picks is offered the, you know,

02:32the player parlay kind of thing. This would say that it's okay to offer the peer to peer

02:37version, which we've talked about on the show before, which essentially, you know,

02:41uses players entry fees as a way of paying out players or for the books to make money,

02:46as opposed to a one off, you win, you lose, you get paid, you don't get paid by the book.

02:51So that's also probably where some of this money would come from allowing some operators who have

02:55left the state to come back in with their peer to peer versions. The senator pushing it is also

03:00trying to include in a different bill, something that would allow New Yorkers to bet on awards

03:06like MVP, or defensive player of the year. Currently, New York is one of the few states,

03:12it's about 10, where you can't bet on those awards, simply because they're not determined

03:17by the outcome of a sporting event. MVP is usually voted on depending on the league by

03:22a bunch of writers or broadcasters or coaches, that kind of thing. So just because of the language

03:28that they have there, where it has to be sporting event, that's prevented people from voting on

03:32those awards. So that would also, you know, be a change that's being proposed. The senator who's

03:37pushing it has been less than optimistic about the chances and the legislature is only about

03:43two weeks left. You know, it's a lot harder to change things after you pass them. But he says

03:47he just wants to make the product better for New Yorkers going forward. So even if this doesn't

03:52get past this session, maybe we'll see carry over next year and eventually get over the line.

Category

Transcript

Recommended