Financial fatalism fuels a gambling gold rush

Financial fatalism fuels a gambling gold rush

The ads have been inescapable all week. From the giant screen at Times Square’s Nasdaq MarketSite to billboards on the subway, New Yorkers have been bombarded with reminders that their state just became the largest in the union to legalise online sports betting.

“Sound the bells, release the doves — Caesars Sportsbook is here,” proclaims one imperially gilded pitchman for an offshoot of the eponymous Las Vegas palace. Social media posts from DraftKings and FanDuel offer hundreds of dollars in risk-free bets to buy the loyalty of punters they hope will be worth far more to them in time.

The marketing frenzy stems from a 2018 US Supreme Court decision to strike down a federal law that banned such wagers outside Nevada. Andrew Cuomo, the then New York governor, decided three years and one pandemic later that sanctioning mobile sports betting could help plug a Covid-shaped hole in his state’s finances.

Thanks to a 51 per cent tax rate, New York expects to be collecting $500m a year from online betting by 2025. (Officials tend not to mention how much that implies New Yorkers will be losing.)

As one headlineput it, online wagering has gone from taboo to revenue, encouraged by states desperate to