A sports betting bill that disenfranchises the entire horse racing industry in New York - after they were included in the Addabbo and Pretlow bills - could have unintended consequences in the form of a litigation risk that goes beyond mobile.

As I explain on @ConDetrimental:
(2:34 to 20:18) https://open.spotify.com/episode/5pbtrGdc8g9EuW2w7Zxy6u?si=_ibZKiOQRqWpwTSs2q5C1A

Here is the risk with Gov. Cuomo's proposal: if you accept that casino-based sports betting passes constitutional muster (and this has never been judicially tested), then the addition of mobile (a distribution channel) would not need a separate constitutional amendment. BUT . . .

The real risk: lottery-operated sports betting or a single-sourced mobile vendor would invite litigation over not just the new component but also the entire NY sports betting framework, based on reasoning contained in the 1984 AG opinion by Robert Abrams. Problematic language.

Here is the most problematic language in the opinion: "It is axiomatic that an exception to a general policy spelled out in a constitution or a statute must be given a narrow interpretation in order to avoid the danger of the exception becoming so broad as to swallow the rule."

AG Abrams was taking about this in the context of the constitutional exception for the state-run lottery and not broadly construing that exception to include sports betting (i.e., bookmaking). Now extrapolate that to the exception for casino gambling, and you see the problem.

1984 AG Opinion: "We submit that the exception to the anti-gambling policy authorizing a state lottery cannot be read to have repealed the ban against the other enumerated forms of gambling. To do so does violence to the words of the general prohibition."

"This is pool-selling or bookmaking. Both are specifically prohibited under Article I, § 9. To contend that they are not means that these specific constitutional words are to be rendered meaningless."

"If the Legislature had wanted to carve out a generalc exception to the overall gambling prohibition for pool-selling, bookmaking or other forms of gambling, it knew how to do so."

"If the Legislature had wanted to carve out a specific exception for bookmaking and pool-selling, it knew how to accomplish this as well (witness its 1957 exception for “bingo or lotto” and the specific definition of “bookmaking” in Section 225.00, subsect. 9, of the Penal Law).