Brian O’Dwyer chairs the New York State Gaming Commission, and he’s not shy about naming the thing keeping him up at night: the offshore gambling market, which New York can’t touch.
The Commission’s reach is wide. O’Dwyer oversees horse racing at Belmont Park, a lottery network spanning 14,000 retailers, mobile sports wagering, and commercial casinos. That’s a lot of ground. But it doesn’t extend past the state line, and that jurisdictional wall is exactly where the illegal market lives.
“Offshore gambling operators and prediction market operators are beyond our jurisdiction and do not have the players’ best interests in mind,” O’Dwyer said. No age checks. No consumer protections. Some of what’s being offered to bettors, he said, is “absolutely reprehensible.” The federal government hasn’t stepped in. O’Dwyer made clear he doesn’t expect that to change anytime soon, which means New York is stuck watching illegal operators poach its players, including in dense residential neighborhoods from Flatbush to Flushing where young people are concentrated and vulnerable.
That’s the bad news. There’s also a lot that isn’t.
Three commercial casinos are coming to New York City, a process years in the making. Belmont Park’s redevelopment is close to finished, and O’Dwyer said the project will “usher in a new era of thoroughbred racing.” For anyone who’s spent a Saturday afternoon at the track, that’s not a throwaway line. Mobile sports wagering keeps outperforming revenue projections. Under New York State’s gaming framework, a meaningful share of that money flows directly to public schools and local governments. O’Dwyer credited Governor Hochul’s policies and legislative action together as the engine behind what he described as “billions upon billions of dollars in revenue” going to education and charitable organizations across New York State. That’s real money. Classrooms in Brooklyn and Queens have watched state aid yo-yo for years based on Albany’s priorities. This is a more stable pipeline.
O’Dwyer took over the chairmanship by appointment, and he’s made a point of drawing a line between his role and the industry he regulates. As the Brooklyn Paper reported in April 2026, he said: “I have not joined the industry by virtue of the Governor’s appointment,” he said. It’s the kind of thing regulators don’t always bother to say out loud, which is probably why it’s worth saying.
The Commission’s racing division uses technology to monitor horse health and safety, a concern that’s gotten sharper after a string of equine deaths at tracks around the country drew national attention over the past several years. The gaming side is pushing into new territory too. Governor Hochul directed the Commission to deploy biometric tools to address underage gambling and problem gambling. That’s not a proposal sitting in a committee somewhere. It’s the direction New York is actively heading in 2026, and it could represent the single biggest shift in how the state manages gambling-related harm since mobile wagering launched.
O’Dwyer won’t pretend the Commission can solve what it can’t regulate. Offshore operators sit outside New York State’s authority, and without federal action, that won’t change. What the Commission can do is tighten what it controls, push technology into spaces where ID checks fail, and make the legal market attractive enough that bettors don’t feel the need to go looking elsewhere.
Ten licensed mobile sports wagering operators are currently active in New York, each paying into a tax structure that funds the public side of the equation. The 09 and 04 figures on the Commission’s calendar reflect the intensity of the regulatory schedule in the first half of 2026, with licensing reviews, compliance deadlines, and the casino development process all running simultaneously.
None of this is simple, and O’Dwyer doesn’t frame it as such. But the Commission has more tools than it did five years ago, more revenue to point to, and a biometric mandate from the Governor’s office that could reshape who gets through the door at a casino or onto a mobile app.
What it doesn’t have is a fix for the offshore problem. That one’s still waiting for Washington.