The New York State Gaming Commission (NYSGC) published an open letter Wednesday reminding sports leagues they have the power to ask the state agency to limit or ban certain types of wagers if it will improve wagering integrity.
New York is the largest sports betting market in the United States, generating $26.3 billion in handle and $2.55 billion in operator revenue in 2025. That resulted in the state receiving $1.32 billion in tax revenue between the 51% rate on New York’s eight mobile sportsbooks and 10% levy on its four commercial retail ones.
The letter, addressed to “League Commissioners and Leaders,” noted that “recent high-profile incidents involving athletes and gambling have caused significant alarm across the sports and gaming industries.” The NYSGC lauded the “strong regulatory measures” that uncovered such incidents and charges against the individuals involved, but also said that those “safeguards alone cannot stop compromised professional athletes — or any individuals — from engaging in nefarious and illegal acts that undermine the integrity of sports gambling.”
What’s been done, what more can be done
The state agency cited the NCAA’s ongoing efforts to eliminate prop bets and MLB working with sportsbooks to put wagering limits of $200 on pitch-level markets and excluding those offerings from all parlay wagers following the federal indictments of Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz.
But in its letter, the NYSGC pointed out that its regulations as well as state law “specifically provide sports leagues the ability to see restriction, limitation, or exclusion of certain wagers.” It added no league has sent the agency such a letter, but it “encourage[s] and expect[s]” the sports bodies to “avail yourselves of this tool, should you have a reasonable belief” it would help. The NYSGC said any request would prompt the commission to act with “alacrity despite the 60-day regulatory timeframe” within current regulations.
The commission also reminded the leagues that it — and not sportsbooks — controls the wagering menu as well as limits the sports and leagues accepted for wagering. The NYSGC said it “will continue to be very conservative with the approval of leagues and types of wagers authorized to provide confidence to bettors.”
The agency added it is currently reviewing “all individual player proposition wagers,” be they single wagers or multi-leg individual-player parlays. The NYSGC warned that if the review points toward the “outright elimination” of certain types of wagers, it will use its given regulatory authority to do so.
And if that doesn’t work …
Several bills are already lined up for the upcoming New York legislative session to potentially curtail such problematic wagers, but some would also notably reduce available betting markets. One such bill comes from Assemblymember Carrie Anne Woerner — the chair of the lower chamber’s Racing and Wagering Committee — that would reduce betting to the “final outcome, score, or winner of a sporting event or contest.”
Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal has filed a bill seeking to end all live betting, and it would take effect immediately after passage. Her bill would remove “in-play bets” from the state’s legal definition of wagering, which would eliminate a substantial amount of wagering handle for New York’s sportsbooks.
