A New York Senator believes the state needs to take a long, hard look at prop bets to decide whether the potential risks are worth it.
Sen. Jeremy Zellner introduced Senate Bill 10153 this week, and it was referred to the Senate Committee on Racing, Gaming, and Wagering on Thursday.
The legislation would establish a “proposition betting task force” within the Rockefeller Institute of the state government to study proposition bets. The bill’s summary specifies that the independent task force would place a particular focus on assessing ‘under’ prop wagers, wherein gamblers bet on an individual athlete falling below a certain statistical threshold for things such as points scored, strikeouts recorded, and many others.
What would a NY prop bet task force look like?
The proposed task force would be made up of four members: two appointed by the Governor, one appointed by the state Assembly, and another chosen by the Senate.
The bill states that the task force would analyze:
- The types, prevalence, and volume of ‘under’ bets offered in New York
- The potential integrity risks presented by ‘under’ bets
- The possible economic impacts of ‘under’ bets on entities authorized to offer them, and on the state’s sports wagering market
- The impact on athletes, on sporting events, and on consumers
- The role of sports integrity monitoring systems
- Any potential solutions to risks, integrity concerns, or other issues that may arise from ‘under’ bets and the impacts of such potential solutions
The task force would also consider all of the above for prop bets more broadly, outside of ‘under’ wagers.
Members of the task force would be required to consult with various stakeholders related to sports betting, sporting integrity, problem gambling, academic research, and economic expertise. The task force may hold public hearings and solicit public comments from those relevant stakeholders. Additionally, the New York State Gaming Commission (NYSGC) and all of the state’s licensed sportsbooks would be required to provide the task force with information necessary to complete the study.
If the bill were to pass this year, the task force would submit its findings and recommendations to the Governor and the state legislature by Dec. 31, 2026, “to inform future policymaking concerning prop bets in New York.”
Senator notes that ‘under’ props have been problematic
Zellner’s bill also includes a lengthy justification for the necessity of studying prop bets, and particularly ‘unders’. It references high-profile betting scandals such as lifetime-banned NBA player Jontay Porter, ex-NBA player Terry Rozier, Cleveland Guardians pitchers Luis Ortiz and Emmanuel Clase, and the various NCAA men’s basketball players who have been implicated in cases relating to the manipulation of performances for the purposes of benefiting from betting.
Players under-performing or leaving games early to ensure ‘under’ bets cashed in has been a repeated theme.
The justification filed with the bill states that prop bets are “uniquely vulnerable to abuse and manipulation.”
“The proliferation of proposition bets tied to the rapid expansion of legal sports betting has fundamentally altered the sports landscape, creating a direct link between a bettor’s financial outcome and an individual athlete’s performance,” it adds.
The bill also references concerns that have been raised by sports bodies including the NCAA and the NFL, as well as the fact that states like Louisiana, Maryland, Ohio, and Vermont have banned college player prop bets.
Can states afford to ban props?
It’s notable that one of the topics for studying that is outlined in Zellner’s bill relates to the potential fiscal impacts of banning ‘under’ bets, given that multiple states have abandoned the idea of banning prop wagers in recent weeks due to financial concerns.
A few weeks ago, Louisiana Sen. Katrina Jackson-Andrews withdrew her own bill to prohibit all props and live “micro bets” after a fiscal note projected the state would lose up to $21m in annual sports betting tax revenue as a result. Louisiana Gaming Control Board data suggested that prop and micro-bets account for roughly 40% of online wagers placed in the state.
A similar thing happened in Colorado, where a proposed ban on props was stripped from a sports betting consumer protection bill before it passed the Senate. The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Matt Ball, suggested that the state would save around $1.6m in tax revenue for the next fiscal year by abandoning the idea of banning props.
Empire State of mind
The bill continues a concerted effort in New York to rein in what is the largest sports betting market in the U.S. by some distance.
On Thursday, Gov. Kathy Hochul unveiled a new 10-year survey effort that is designed to assess how New Yorkers are gambling and where additional problem gambling-related services and supports may be needed. Back in early February, the NYSGC wrote to sports leagues to state that it would review all player prop bets and same-game parlays and may consider eliminating some bet types based on the results.
Meanwhile, numerous player protection bills have been filed in the Empire State in 2025 and 2026, with prop bets on the agenda in multiple cases.
One notable proposal, Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal’s Bill A9343, proposes to ban “in-play bets”, seemingly defined loosely and generally as a bet placed on a sports event after the event has begun and before it ends. That idea would seem to go beyond a bill in neighboring New Jersey that focused on trying to ban “micro bets” specifically related to the next play of a sports game.
Another New York bill, filed by Assembly Committee on Racing and Wagering Chair Carrie Woerner, would limit sports betting to wagers on the final outcome, score or winner of a sporting event, eliminating all prop wagers and more.
