Last updated: January 27, 2025
New York Senator Joseph Addabbo has refiled his online casino legislation for 2025, designated as S2614, after previous efforts stalled last year. The bill faces stiff opposition from a major casino workers union, which fears job losses at brick-and-mortar gaming facilities.
New York Senator Joseph Addabbo is following up on his efforts to legalize online casinos in the state with a refile of the bill that didn’t catch on in 2024. Perhaps the largest hurdle for last year’s attempt was resistance to iGaming from unions representing New York’s land-based casino workers. Unless something changes, that may be as daunting in 2025 as it was in 2024.
Casino employees have shown concerns that authorized online casino play would take the money away from the casinos they work at, creating job losses. Addabbo has maintained that he is prepared to make concessions within his bill in order to relieve those concerns but it is not apparent if the unions are equally desirous of doing so.
Even if they are, there are some other possible problems blocking the way of Addabbo’s bill’s passage in 2025.
For a third year in a row, Addabbo has introduced his version of legislation to extend New York’s infrastructure for regulated internet-based gambling to incorporate online casinos and an online lottery. For 2025, the bill is S2614.
The bill is currently awaiting action from the New York Senate Racing, Gaming, and Wagering Committee. Addabbo has returned as the chair of that committee.
In 2024, Addabbo was expecting the bill to be incorporated as part of the state budget. Still, he told PlayUSA that that would not be possible in March 2024.
Addabbo demonstrated his commitment by pursuing the legislation as a separate matter later in the 2024 session. That is when he faced resistance from a casino employees union.
In April 2024, Addabbo informed PlayUSA that he wished to collaborate with the Hotel Trades Council (HTC), an AFL-CIO affiliate representing hospitality employees, to discover a form of regulated iGaming that the union would be willing to accept. HTC Political Director Bhav Tibrewal described Addabbo’s actions at the time as “putting bells and whistles on a job killer.”
Addabbo authored a funding bill into S2614 that would offer up to $40 million for casino employees. Tibrewal, however, said that “no amount of state revenue iGaming generates, if it comes at the expense of jeopardizing the prospects for casino jobs, in our view it’s a no-brainer that it’s the wrong thing to do.”
The union’s worries could only grow if S2614 fails to pass in 2025. In subsequent years, the HTC could have many more members in New York.
New York gaming officials and public policymakers are in the midst of making decisions on locations for up to three land-based casinos in the state’s southern region. On a longer-term level, the casinos’ opening could increase the HTC’s membership and heighten concerns about cannibalization.
In the short term, site and licensee selection processes for those opportunities have been secondary to online casino expansion. As regulators have only given themselves through to the end of 2025 to make determinations regarding licensees and sites, that may hold back advancement on S2614 in 2025.
To counteract that, Addabbo and other proponents of iGaming will have to persuade New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and others that the state’s gaming regulators can “walk and chew gum at the same time,” or handle the downstate casino bids and introduce iGaming at the same time.
Hochul has seemed aloof to iGaming, though, in that she did not propose revenue from that gaming segment in her 2024 budget. If the same holds true in 2025, that could signal that online casino legalization is still a non-starter for her.
In any case, the 2025 story could not have gone down differently if Addabbo had not introduced the bill to initiate the narrative. That chapter of the story is officially now in the books.
