Let NY Play: Rallying Cry for Online Gambling in New York

If people in New Jersey can play online poker legally, why can’t they do so in New York?  Let NY Play Twitter and Facebook accounts were recently set up asking this very question with the Facebook account amassing around 5000 likes.

The New York Times on Tuesday suggests that MGM is behind this push to get online gambling legalized in the Empire State.  They also have grandiose plans to enter New York’s expanding brick and mortar casino market.

MGM is already lobbying in Albany and supports legislation introduced earlier in the year to legalize Web poker.  That bill is sponsored by State Senator John J. Bonacic, a Republican who represents a region of the Catskills. Odds of anything getting passed in this election year were virtually nill however.

To date, only three states have legalized online gambling in one form or another – Nevada, Delaware and New Jersey.  Each did so last year.  No state has enacted legislation in 2014.

But campaigns like Let NY Play do take things to a whole other level. In addition to the Facebook likes, the group’s Twitter account was nearing 400 followers.

New York, like California, would be considered among the online gambling industry’s biggest prizes with access to some 19 million people, more than double that of neighboring New Jersey.

The Garden State's gambling sector, now active for nearly a year, has failed to gain the type of traction initially envisioned. 

- Ace King, Gambling911.com