“Start spreading the news…”
On July 16, Rivers Casino & Resort Schenectady opened its new Rivers Sportsbook lounge, officially kicking off legal sports betting in the Empire State.
That’s welcome news, but there’s just one little hitch: though Sen. Joe Addabbo and Assemblyman Gary Pretlow stumped hard to include iGaming in the bill, Governor Andrew Cuomo kayoed the measure.
This means three things:
- Mobile gamblers in New York are out of luck
- Mobile sportsbooks in New Jersey will be in the money, and
- Cuomo has put his foot in it. (Pssst, Andy, this is the digital age. To bar your constituents from playing online is way passé and only delays the inevitable.)
Meanwhile, New Yawkers are welcome to visit the glorious Garden State, where they can fire up their smartphones and place a bet wherever, whenever, as long as they stay inside state lines.
Meanwhile, the new Rivers Sportsbook sounds pretty nice. Designed by DMAC Architecture of Chicago, it’s a 5,000-square-foot luxury lounge with club chairs and table seating for 80. Five private booths seat up to six people and have their own TV monitors. The lounge also includes 18 individual VIP seats and 32 tabletop seats.
A giant 53-foot x 9-foot LED video wall anchors the sportsbook viewing area along with 22 additional TV monitors (who’s manning all those remotes?). The book also includes 14 betting kiosks and six staffed betting windows.
If you’re up Schenectady way, check it out. If not, Jersey’s right across the river.
