Sports Betting Sites / Play / New York legislators have proposed geofencing college campuses out of state’s online sports betting system, but would such a system actually work?

New York legislators have proposed geofencing college campuses out of state’s online sports betting system, but would such a system actually work?

Derek Helling

Legal Writer

Publish Date: May 29, 2026

Fact checked by: Matt Moreno

Key Points

Geofencing college and university facilities poses multiple significant challenges in terms of feasibility and privacy.
Proposal’s efficacy as deterrent will greatly depend on introducing friction into wagering process.
Bill to affect new requirements represents legislators’ attempt to curtail potential for disordered gaming in classically vulnerable population.

A group of legislators in New York has proposed that the state mandate that licensed online sportsbooks impose geolocation restrictions for college and university campuses in the state, banning the placement of wagers from anyone on those grounds. While the proposal could aim to reduce exposure to sports wagering among groups traditionally believed to be among the most vulnerable in terms of experiencing gambling-related harms, there are significant obstacles to its effective implementation.

Geofencing specific facilities may require deploying peripherals, which could incur costs for institutions, and systems may not precisely cover all areas of campuses. Refinement of the geolocation could be a work in progress, but there are also questions about whether adding friction to the betting process would be a sufficient deterrent.

Max Fried #54 of the New York Yankees pitches against the Texas Rangers at Globe Life Field on April 27, 2026 in Arlington, Texas.

(Photo by Richard Rodriguez/Getty Images)

Bills ban online sports betting on campuses of New York colleges and universities

While two members of the New York Assembly filed A10526 in March, New York Sen. Andrew Gounardes didn’t submit a companion in his chamber until May 15. S10470 has several tenets related to legal sports wagering in New York.

The measure “prohibits mobile sports wagering operators or platform providers from permitting, accepting, or facilitating placement of a sports wager through a mobile application from any individual on a NY college campus.” Additionally, the proposal “directs colleges to cooperate with the Gaming Commission by providing geographic information necessary for enforcement.”

To comply with the restriction on placing wagers on campuses, online sportsbooks operating in New York would need to ramp up geolocation protocols in such areas. Those actions could become complicated and mean new costs for more than just the sportsbook operators.

Devil could be in the details for college and university campus geofencing

Professionals involved in implementing geolocation restrictions for online activity have expressed concerns about the practicality of imposing such controls specific to college and university campuses. The costs of enabling geofencing at this level might be prohibitive as well.

“Geofencing college campuses is technically feasible but operationally messy,” said David Hampian, Founder of Field Vision, who worked with Hard Rock Bet on its online launch in Florida. “From a digital operations standpoint, this is similar to how gaming companies already manage state-line geofencing for regulatory compliance, but campus-level precision is much tighter, meaning edge cases multiply significantly. The opportunity for false positives is pretty vast (e.g., a bettor sitting in an apartment building adjacent to campus or passing through on public transit could get blocked), creating a customer experience problem for the apps.”

Sportsbooks could lean on colleges to aid in overcoming logistical hurdles

Ensuring precise location restrictions could require the installation of additional hardware on the ground around facilities.

“The proposal isn't unworkable, but it would need to go beyond basic IP checks,” stated Husnain Bajwa, VP of Product and Risk Solutions at SEON Fraud Fighters. “It would take a combination of GPS, device signals, Wi-Fi positioning, and network data to get close to the accuracy this requires. The bigger question is what happens at the edges; a student sitting just off campus gets blocked. Someone visiting campus for non-academic reasons can't place a legal bet. Those false positives are inevitable, and operators will be the ones fielding the complaints. The intent is reasonable, but the execution requires more precision than most people assume.”

The sportsbooks may call upon the colleges and universities to assist in the placement and maintenance of GPS devices and other physical implements. The bill does not require institutions of higher learning to carry such costs, merely to provide necessary information to enable location parameters.

At the same time, compliance with regulations may be challenging without the usage of enhanced systems, potentially creating pressure for facility management or ownership to share costs. There are ethical concerns around privacy as well.

Could elevated geofencing on campuses violate privacy standards?

While the aim of A10526/S10470 may be to protect members of vulnerable populations from harms related to gambling, the geofencing would affect more than young adults studying at New York’s colleges and universities. Everyone on campus would be unable to place bets if the proposal becomes law in New York, regardless of their age or their relationship with gaming.

Activities that require geolocation for legal compliance inherently equate to tracking user behavior. Creating an additional need for such location verification, therefore, adds to the number of records associated with a bettor’s account.

“Enforcing a tight campus geofence reliably means collecting more precise, more frequent location data on every bettor in the state, not just students,” commented Julian Gage, Data Protection Officer for Engage Compliance. “You surveil everyone more closely to restrict a subset, and it's worth asking whether the enforcement gain justifies that.”

The concerns and obstacles could be why a similar proposal in Maryland in 2024 failed. During debate over that bill, representatives from Towson University called the idea of geofencing its campus “not technically feasible” and cited concerns about private network usage.

Beyond the concerns about the practicality of geolocation restrictions on college campuses, there are also questions about whether it would work to improve protections for vulnerable individuals. It’s possible to make an argument both against and for that premise.

Geolocation restrictions could add friction but might also incentivize unregulated wagering

Consumer behavior studies have documented a couple of simple premises. The first is that the easier you make it for people to participate in an activity, the more likely they are to do so.

The second is that the contrary is also valid. Participation rates fall as obstacles to engagement with the activity mount.

Following that logic, effective geolocation restrictions may act as a prevention for some people who spend a lot of time on the campuses of New York colleges and universities regarding experiencing harms from gambling. Needing to move off campus to place bets may represent sufficient friction to reduce gambling activity with licensed sportsbooks for some people in New York.

However, that premise ignores the presence of other readily available options that don’t participate in New York’s online sports wagering regulatory system but are nonetheless available to people on campuses like offshore sportsbook websites and prediction market exchanges. Rather than moving off campus to place bets with licensed apps in New York, some people may instead devote their resources to those platforms.

It’s difficult to determine which of these possible effects could be more prevalent. However, taking imperfect action to protect vulnerable populations may be preferential to endless debates that delay all efforts.

Avoiding paralysis by analysis in protecting vulnerable populations

There is little doubt about the potential utility of providing enhanced interventions for young adults around gambling. Numerous studies show a strong correlation between the age group and more frequent experiences of such harms.

Rather than waiting for a seemingly perfect solution that could provide additional protections for young adults without any perceivable weaknesses, these New York legislators are proposing actionable measures. The bugs in such a system could be worked out over time as facility managers, regulators, and sportsbook licensees communicate to improve products.

“The hard part is less drawing the geofence and more proving that every blocked or allowed decision was reasonable, explainable, and privacy-conscious,” explained Jonathan Beresford, Founder at MathsTutor, a senior software engineer who has built and operated web/mobile-adjacent products.

If the intervention prevents young adults in New York from experiencing gambling-related harms, a few people struggling to place legal bets on the fringes of the campuses, the cost of placing additional hardware, and the addition of new data points on bettor behavior could be a worthwhile trade-off. The question is whether the geolocation restrictions would curtail gambling-related harms among students on a significant level or only mostly result in members of vulnerable populations choosing unregulated channels instead of New York’s legal sportsbooks. Should A10526/S10470 become law, only time and young adults on New York’s college campuses can answer those questions.

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