WynnBet in New York has closed operations and stopped taking bets as of Monday afternoon, opening the door for ESPN BET to gain its license in the state ahead of the lucrative NFL season.
Wynn had been purchased by ESPN BET in February for $25 million. Since then, WynnBet had been a sitting duck, closing down all operations except in New York and Michigan. Even in those states, bets were limited to $100 across all users.
The New York WynnBet site still remained online when operations in Colorado, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia were taken down because its license in the state is perhaps the single most important reason the company was acquired by PENN Entertainment, which owns ESPN BET.
New York caps its eligible sportsbooks to just nine. FanDuel, DraftKings, Caesars, BetMGM, BetRivers, Bally Bet, Fanatics, Resorts World and Wynn are the only companies able to legally host sports wagering in the state.
It’s perhaps the only reason that PointsBet remained valuable when it sold its New York license to Fanatics for $225 million in 2023.
On the PointsBet note, it also takes time to transition new acquisitions, hence the lag time between the February acquisition and Monday’s WynnBet closure. It took Fanatics over six months, for instance, to fully takeover PointsBet’s operations across the United States.
ESPN BET will now have access to the state with the largest overall handle in the country. That doesn’t necessarily make New York the most lucrative for sportsbooks, however.
That’s on account of taxes. The effective tax rate in New York is 51% of gross gaming revenues. Compare that to New Jersey’s tax rate, which is 13% on adjusted gross revenue (AGR) for all online apps.
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