NY State Senator Addabbo touts icasino expansion at FanDuel ribbon cutting
Even as Rafael Nadal stockpiled the slams at Roland Garros, the phrase remained top of mind for the incomparable lefty. The legendary tennis star hardly relented as his entourage continually reminded him to “stay humble and stay hungry”.
As you enter FanDuel’s expansive new office in Lower Manhattan, you are greeted by the maxim adorned against a backdrop behind the main reception desk. The axiom is applicable to FanDuel’s market performance in New York where the company has held the mantle as the putative market leader since the Empire State launched online sports betting in 2022.
Shortly before taking part in Monday’s ribbon cutting ceremony, FanDuel CEO Amy Howe addressed a packed room alongside New York State Senator Joseph Addabbo, the chairman of the Senate’s Racing, Gaming and Wagering Committee.
For Fiscal Year 2025-26, FanDuel tops the New York online sports betting market with handle of $2.14 billion. As the market leader in New York, FanDuel is eager to reinvest in a city replete with talent. The 36,000sq ft office in the city’s Flatiron District contains a signed jersey from Rob Gronkowski’s “Kick of Destiny” and two spectator seats from the prior incarnation of Yankee Stadium.
“It has been many years in the making,” said Howe of the new office. “I could not be more excited. It feels like the first day of school.”
New York iCasino: Not done yet
Addabbo’s appearance came at a crossroads for gambling legislation in New York. On Friday, potential licensees interested in applying for the state’s downstate casino bidding process will brush up against a deadline to submit their applications.
In many respects, attention on the process has stalled progress in Addabbo’s bid to bring legalised online casino gaming to the Empire State.
While sports betting is ostensibly viewed as a low-margin proposition, iCasino is considered a cash cow. There are estimates that the state’s budget deficit will swell to approximately $6 billion in Fiscal Year 2026-27. To close the budget gap, other jurisdictions with legalised iGaming have already brought millions of dollars to their respective state coffers.
If you extrapolate the size of New York’s population with those figures, it is reasonable to project that the state could generate at least $1.5 billion in annual tax revenue from iGaming. By way of comparison, the state received more than $1 billion in tax revenue from sports betting during its previous fiscal year.
“We knew New York would do great in the market nationally, I want to congratulate you on carrying the ball across the goal line,” said Addabbo at the ceremony. “We’re not done, we want to expand FanDuel here with iGaming.
“It’s not a question if, it’s a question of when and that’s when we’re really going to blow this out of the water,” he added.
Is FanDuel immune from tax increases?
Howe was joined at the ceremony by Andy Giancamilli, FanDuel’s chief operating officer and Asaf Noifeld, FanDuel’s managing director of casino at FanDuel and Karol Corcoran, who serves as the company’s senior vice president and sportsbook general manager.
Other FanDuel executives who attended the ceremony include: Christian Genetski, president at FanDuel, Mike Raffensperger, president of sports at FanDuel and David Jennings, FanDuel’s chief financial officer. Approximately 800 FanDuel employees call New York home, according to the company.
The ceremony marked one of FanDuel’s first public events since the company announced a plan to impose a $0.50 surcharge on every sports wager in Illinois. DraftKings, FanDuel’s arch rival, followed by announcing a similar plan days later.
The imposition of the surcharge follows a last-minute effort by the Illinois legislature to pass the nation’s first sports betting tax on sportsbook handle.
Fitch: Tax increases will have little impact on market leaders
Last week, Fitch Ratings wrote in a 16 June note that recent tax hikes against sportsbook operators could dampen the industry’s positive momentum. However, Fitch Ratings associate director David Lowenstein wrote in the note that a tax increase from a single state will have no impact on the ratings of FanDuel or DraftKings.
FanDuel shares a building with Franklin Templeton and IBM in its new office on Madison Avenue. Following Flutter’s listing on the New York Stock Exchange last year, speculation intensified that Flutter may consider a spin-off for FanDuel or even a separate US IPO.
On one hand, some analysts view 2025 as a year for when investors would largely shift from debt to equity due to the potential for higher returns on equity markets. A lower rate environment is viewed as a tailwind for IPOs, as a downward trajectory in rates generally reduces borrowing costs.
But on the other, the US Federal Reserve has paused cutting rates as the central bank continues to examine the impact of tariff increases on the global economy.
The pause creates added uncertainty on the pace of IPOs in the gambling industry. FanDuel did not make Howe available for comment at Monday’s ceremony.