New York is home to many professional, collegiate and amateur sports teams and leagues. The state has a rich history in football, basketball and baseball, and NY sports fans are loyal to their teams. With such a strong focus on sports throughout NY, it is only natural that residents of the Empire State would be interested in betting on sports. This guide provides information for New York residents who are interested in betting on their favorite teams, players, games and matches, and are in search of what legal options are available to bet on sports other than traveling to Vegas or Delaware to place their bets. There are indeed legitimate opportunities available, but you have to understand the structure of the industry in order to properly determine which options are a good match for your specific circumstances. Unfortunately there are also some very undesirable destinations which are not legitimate and provide a questionable and potentially dangerous gambling environment. The purpose of this guide is to arm bettors with data so that they can make informed decisions that land them at legally licensed brands that coincide with their betting preferences and needs.

This question requires a little explanation in order to answer it correctly. There are two federal laws in place which govern sports betting in the United States. These are the Federal Wire Act and the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. These laws govern US based sports gambling in the United States. We go into more detail on these topics on our page about New York betting laws. In essence, these two federal laws ban US based sports betting both online and offline. The PASPA law does provide a few exemptions, including sports gambling in Nevada, Delaware, Oregon and Montana. Other than those select destinations, there are no legal options for betting on sports through US based businesses. Based on these US federal laws that are in place, New York has not addressed sports betting in their state laws and statutes. We can understand that as no new state law would supersede existing federal laws.

This does not eliminate all options for betting on sports in NY however. If you take your betting action to legally licensed and certified sportsbooks that are regulated outside of the USA, then you are not violating any US federal or New York state laws. These legitimate offshore sportsbooks allow you to legally participate high quality sports betting without traveling to Las Vegas. The brands recommended in this guide have all been vetted by professionals and verified to be legally licensed and regulated by a respected governing jurisdiction. For those interested in reviewing New York state laws, you can visit the New York State Legislature website.

In order to participate in any type of gambling activity in New York, you must be at least 21 years of age. While the state does not specifically address sports betting, it is logical to assume that participation in any type of legal gambling requires that residents adhere to the state's requirements concerning the legal gambling age in New York. Do not be confused by the fact that some of the gambling sites in our guide only require players to be 18 years old. This does not supersede the state's restriction of 21 years of age. Anyone participating in under age gambling in New York will face penalties, including loss of any funds used in the gambling session, as well as various fines and other potential penalties.

The sportsbooks that we recommend accept New York residents, and they also cover a wide range of sports events and categories, including football, that offers betting lines on New York NFL teams, college teams, as well as professional and collegiate teams from around the country. You will also find lines for betting New York professional basketball teams and college basketball teams, as well as baseball, hockey, soccer, golf, tennis, boxing, motor sports such as NASCAR, MMA, Olympic sports events, among others. A strong selection of wagering options is also offered, and some nice features such as live betting and mobile sports betting.

We've just uploaded our 2015 New York Football preview which should help you learn more about the teams this year.

New York Knicks

Bringing in the famous Phil Jackson as their GM last year, and Derek Fisher as their head coach, neither move had much of an impact on the embattled New York Knicks and their star Carmello Anthony. Called too selfish to ever be a championship-winning teammate, Anthony struggled big-time last year, and so too did New York. ATS (against the spread), they only managed a record of 34-46-3, which means they weren't a very smart bet. And it was like that across the board. As an away team, they were 17-20-3, and in conference games they were 22-28-3. As dogs, they were 16-20-3. The moral of the story: The Knicks were pretty bad last year.

Will these trends reverse next season? New York did pick up big man Kristaps Porzingis with the 4th pick in the draft, but most experts expect that this Euro player is too soft to make an impact. Overall, New York is liable to be a weak team defensively and an underachieving team offensively, since Anthony is very unlikely to share the ball. If you want to bet on a NY team next year, make sure it's not the Knicks. They're not looking very good to reverse these bad trends.

Brooklyn Nets

In their first year in Brooklyn last season, the Nets and new owner billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov were hoping to impress. However, the Nets ended up one of the worst teams in the East, and their roster basically fell apart due to age, injury, inexperience, and an unstable environment from the owner all the way down to the head coach. They weren't horrible ATS; they were basically even, going 43-43-2, but that's nothing worth betting on.

When well rested, with more than two days of rest, they were 11-5 ATS, which was by far their best number. But as for being a winning team, they basically failed miserably in many regards. This season, they may be able to eek out a few more wins, but they're still not the best team around in the East. They will probably miss the playoffs again and won't be a team worth betting on.

Buffalo Bills

If you want to know about betting trends for the NY Giants or Jets, please refer to our New Jersey article. As those teams play in Jersey, we technically classify them as Jersey teams. For a team that actually plays in New York, you're looking at the Buffalo Bills. This season, the Bills are a very tough team, led by Rex Ryan and QB Tyron Taylor. Their defense is greatly improved from last year, and they've already crushed a playoff team from last year with their impressive defeat over the Indianapolis Colts and Andrew Luck. This is a huge upswing compared to last season, when the Bills were a bottom-rung team.

Though while their win-loss record wasn't that impressive last season, they were actually 9-7 ATS. From a gambler's perspective, the Bills were okay. They went 6-2 as underdogs while covering, and were 3-1 in non-conference games. They were also 5-2 as away underdogs, which is better than the Patriots who actually won the Super Bowl. Now, they weren't a lock, but they were a smart bet to cover a big spread. In plain English, they weren't likely to get blown out.

The Bills will be more of the same this year. With Rex Ryan, a better QB and a better overall team, we can see a legitimate 11-5 ATS this season.