Trade group wants sports betting in restaurants

While gaming firms scramble to secure licenses for the three pending downstate casinos, a trade group is seeking to expand sports betting to restaurants.

The New York State Restaurant Association is lobbying state lawmakers to expand gaming licenses to include restaurants, because they say on-premises betting will boost the industry’s “economic arsenal” as restaurants continue to struggle with a “harsh economic environment.”

Prior to the pandemic, the restaurant industry was a $50 billion industry in New York, producing $4 billion a year in sales tax revenue, according to an association statement. However, the trade group maintains that higher costs, supply-chain disruptions and staffing shortages have cut into restaurant profits over the past few years.

“New York sports fans have enthusiastically embraced sports betting, either at brick-and-mortar casinos or from their mobile devices and are hungry for more. New York must capture this economic opportunity and expand the type of licenses available to restaurants and meet consumer demand,” Melissa Fleischut, president and CEO of the New York State Restaurant Association, said in the statement. “The restaurant industry is well positioned to take advantage of this burgeoning marketplace and grow New York’s sports betting footprint. We understand sports betting terminals and kiosks might not have a place in every restaurant and expanding available licenses may not be a silver bullet for the industry. However, for those where this is a fit, the additional revenue from on-premises sports betting could mean the difference between closing and survival.”

Last month, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that the state collected more than $900 million in taxes and licensing fees from mobile sports betting during its first year of operation.

The association points to a sports bar in Washington D.C that reported bringing in over $1.4 million in gross gaming revenue since the beginning of the NFL season in Sept. 2022, claiming that the extra income allowed the business to keep its doors open.

Michele Ciavarella, executive chairman of Toronto-based Elys Game Technology, a sports and internet betting platform provider, said the state represents an “optimal landscape for leveraging the enthusiasm for sports betting” at restaurants and retail establishments.

“We believe that fostering a retail market is a question of convenience that that would allow a sports bettor the option of patronizing a local restaurant or sports bar while enjoying a sports event as adopted in D.C., Maryland and Ohio as well as Canadian provinces, while contributing tax revenue for community services and infrastructure,” Ciavarella said in the statement.