New York was weighing a set of sports-betting safeguards that would require biometric confirmation before online wagers, along with device registration and tighter location checks on account activity, in a bid to keep minors off betting apps and make suspicious use easier to spot.
In May, Biometric Update reported that Gov. Kathy Hochul had directed the New York State Gaming Commission to explore tools including facial recognition. She said online sports betting had become immensely popular and warned of significant financial loss and addictive behavior among young people.
The commission’s pre-proposal memo, Potential Rulemaking for Underage Play Prevention, would amend 9 NYCRR § 5402.4 with new language on mitigating underage play, defining terms and excluding people who facilitate underage gambling. Commission chairman Brian O’Dwyer said he supported the effort and wanted technology to help identify people experiencing gambling harms.
One core change would require operators to collect biometric data when a person opens an account, so the later user is the same person who created it. Existing accountholders would have 60 days after the rule takes effect to provide biometric data or lose access.
The draft would also require biometric identification before a wager is placed in an app session and again before the wager is accepted. That could mean facial recognition or another biometric authentication method at the point of betting.
The proposal also called for age-assurance controls to stop underage users from downloading or installing a betting app. On mobile devices, operators would have to check whether the operating system indicates the device is owned or possessed by an underage person, and block the download if it does.
Geolocation is another layer. Operators would have to deny access when an account is opened from a device the customer does not customarily use, or from locations the customer does not usually access, unless biometric confirmation restores access.
The draft also targeted patterns that look like account sharing or impossible travel. It would require operators to block access when activity appears in two or more locations close enough in time that the account holder is unlikely to be in both places.
The rules would apply not only to mobile sports wagering operators but also to horse-racing account wagering providers and lottery courier services. Lottery couriers would face the same underage-play mitigation measures as gaming operators.
New reporting and exclusion rules would also hold adults to account if they helped minors gamble. Operators would have to report people suspected of giving underage users access, and the commission would maintain an exclusion list for those deemed to have facilitated gambling by minors.
People on that list would be excluded or ejected from gaming facilities and barred from collecting winnings or recovering losses from gaming activity, including lottery play. The proposed rules would also allow certain winnings to be forfeited to the commission where state law permits and remove excluded people from lottery subscription programs.
HighStakesDB said the package also introduced extra scrutiny for large accounts, with triggers including deposits above $10,000 in 24 hours, deposits above $100,000 in 90 days and account turnover above $1 million over the same period. It described the idea as giving bigger accounts clear procedures rather than loose promises.
Biometric Update said Hochul’s January State of the State agenda had already pointed the commission toward biometric age verification, including facial matching, to stop young people from downloading betting apps, creating accounts or using someone else’s account. The Sports Betting Alliance said it was eager to work with regulators on advanced age and identity technologies and on cracking down on illegal offshore gambling.
Gamblingnews.com described the package as a sweeping overhaul aimed at protecting young people and addressing problem gambling. It also said officials were considering device registration, location tracking and a ban on AI used for marketing or personalized wagering suggestions.
