It looks as though New York State will split the baby on sports wagering: Casino-based betting in 2019, mobile wagering in 2022. Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) has baked what Credit Suisse analyst Cameron McKnight calls “a small amount of sports betting revenues” into his next budget but a statewide expansion of sports betting would 
require a referendum, most likely in November 2021. “New York is one of the most populous, wealthy and sports-mad states, and we think investors are more likely to seriously ascribe value for sports when they can see it around them,” writes McKnight, who projects $456 million in gross revenues by Year Three, with the addition of mobile wagering in 2022 bringing in another $380 million. “New York is clearly an important state, with: 20mm people, per capita income 1.2x the national average and 3.5% per capita income growth at 1.4x the national average.” The Empire State will also be the decisive battleground for integrity fees, since so many leagues have their headquarters in the Big Apple. A 0.25% integrity fee is currently proposed in the Lege, so that bears close watching.
Another flashpoint could be a low cap on “skins” (brands) per online-casino operator. New York is looking at one apiece. Opines McKnight, “there is no ‘magic number’ of skins in a given market, though New York with 4 brands would stand in sharp contrast to New Jersey with 42 brands … One of our contacts suggested third parties (e.g., DFS operators) will enter through partnerships in markets with limited skins.” At present, New York appears to be seriously flirting with online gambling but only if it can keep the genie close to the bottle.
* Genting Group found itself in Las Vegas court, arguing that its design for Resorts World Las Vegas is “dramatically different” from Wynncore, using renderings that looked suspiciously like … Wynncore, only with a red wash in place of Wynn Resorts‘ 
trademark green. Even Genting seems to concede having kicked the ball onto the fairway, saying it showed renderings and video to Wynn CEO Matt Maddox last July and then walking back the design to something less Wynn-like. Genting accused Maddox of “speculative extrapolation regarding the appearance” based on building still years from completion. That doesn’t explain away the green-hued windows that Scott Roeben and others have documented on the in-progress Resorts World. Wynn Resorts’ suit contends that Resorts World will have a very familiar look: a “three-dimensional building with concave facade, and curved, bronze glass, coupled with horizontal banding above and between the lines of glass panes.”
Added Wynn, in a counter claim, “Resorts World’s newly created exterior renderings, dated 2019 and well after the filing of our complaint, are merely drawings which do not reflect the actual construction directly across the street from our resort. We will continue to pursue our legal claims and injunctive relief in this matter.” Could Wynn be trying to force Genting to sell? Only Maddox’s hairdresser knows for sure.
* Faced with a lawsuit from William Hill, DFS operator FanDuel knuckled under, paying an undisclosed settlement over a betting guide that cribbed passages verbatim from a similar William Hill document. In a deliciously ironic touch, William Hill will 
use the settlement money to fund creative-writing classes. (Some monies will also go toward the treatment of disordered gambling.) “Court documents outlined numerous instances of entire blocks of text from the William Hill guide appearing verbatim in the FanDuel version, although in a different typeface,” reports Wayne Parry. “The suit also claimed FanDuel copied diagrams illustrating possible bets and odds. For instance, a chart involving a 1:05 p.m. baseball game between the Chicago Cubs and the Philadelphia Phillies listing both starting pitchers and three different ways to bet on the game appeared identically in both publications.” (FanDuel even forgot to remove a William Hill logo.) In the future, FanDuel would do well to perform its own homework instead of cribbing from the student at the next desk.
