About playin-ny.com
playin-ny is your local resource for information about all legal New York gambling and sports betting. Below, you can find out who we are, why we do what we do, and most importantly, how you can reach out to us with your questions.
The playin-ny mission
The goal of our site is to provide New Yorkers’ with a combination of unbiased news coverage, educational resources, and information about the top sportsbooks and bonus offers legally available in NY.
Contact Us
Catena Media US, Inc.
8565 S. Eastern Avenue, Suite 150
Las Vegas, NV 89123
USA
(702) 941-6632
The people behind playin-ny
All of the content that you see on playin-ny is written, edited, and reviewed to the highest professional standards. We do not accept guest submissions or publish user-generated content on the site. Every word is the product of hours of research and the years of experience each of our team members brings to the table. In other words, every bit of information you read on playin-ny comes from highly skilled professionals who write about gambling for a living. So, without further ado, here are the superstars that produce the high-quality work you see on playin-ny:
Managing Editor: Jeff Hawley
Jeff Hawley is a longtime sports writer who has covered the high school, collegiate and professional levels. A graduate of Linfield College in McMinnville, Jeff has covered games and written features and columns surrounding prep sports, Linfield and Oregon State athletics, the Portland Trail Blazers and golf throughout his career.
Lead Writer: Ronald Smith
Ronald Smith is a New Jersey native and honors graduate of Rutgers University. He served as a reporter for the New Jersey Herald and Press of Atlantic City, earning statewide awards for his coverage of politics, government, education, sports and business. Today, he contributes to New York’s growing legal gambling landscape, including online sports betting and potential legalization of NY online casinos.
Contributing Writer: William German
Born in Oak Lawn, Illinois, William graduated from Northern Illinois University, where he covered NIU hockey for the Northern Star. Since then, William has specialized in NFL and NBA coverage for various websites and podcasts before shifting gears to casino and sports betting coverage.
playin-ny Contributor: Thomas Martin
Thomas has covered efforts to legalize and regulate online gambling since 2007. His reporting on the legalization of sports betting began in 2010 with an article for Playboy Magazine on how the NFL was pushing US money overseas by fighting the expansion of regulated sports betting. A USC journalism alum, Thom started his career as a sportswriter at the Los Angeles Daily News and has written on a variety of topics for Playboy, Men’s Journal, Los Angeles magazine, LA Weekly and ESPN.com.
playin-ny Contributor: Paul Thrasher
Paul has covered New York sports since 2010, previously working as a beat writer and columnist for ESPN (Nets), Yahoo Sports (NBA/MLB) and the New York Daily News (Yankees). His work has also been published in the New York Times, New York Post, Forbes and The Ringer.
Content Manager: Boyd Johnson
Boyd Johnson manages the sites for some of the biggest gambling markets in the US, including playin-ny. He has covered the sports betting and gambling industry for over two years and is now leading the charge in the most influential markets to potentially launch online casinos. A University of Northern Colorado graduate, he also has over a decade of journalism experience covering college and professional athletics. He and his wife’s three cats secretly run their house, including brothers Cheech and Chong.
Who we are
playin-ny is part of the Catena Media network. Catena Media owns and operates dozens of sites across the US, all of which cover the legal gambling industry in every state in the country. Every gambling site that we discuss is a legal and regulated entity in its respective state. In other words, we at playin-ny will never name nor review any gambling outlet that is anything short of a fully licensed company in the State of New York.
Catena Media is a licensed and registered vendor in any jurisdiction where registration is required by law. According to NYCRR Title 9, Part 5307.3 (b), various types of organizations — including media outlets — are not required to acquire a license in New York. If at any time, however, the commission changes the rules or requirements, Catena Media will gladly submit the appropriate verification and application to become an official entity in New York.
playin-ny is an affiliate news site. While you may find advertisements for legal NY gambling sites, the companies behind the ads do not have a say in our editorial content. Each of these advertisements is the result of our affiliate partnerships with these companies. We do not accept paid advertising offers of any kind.
How we work
We understand that there are many different choices when it comes to information on the internet. Not everything you read is trustworthy. So, we go through several different steps and procedures to ensure that you can take what you read on playin-ny to the bank.
First of all, we get our information from as close to the source as we can. If we discuss the law, we cite the text of the law as published by the state government. If we discuss bills in the Assembly, we speak to their authors. Any statistics you see are usually drawn directly from gaming commission reports. playin-ny does not report on gossip or secondhand information — period.
We also subject every published word to a rigorous review process. By the time you read something on playin-ny, several different pairs of eyes have gone over the material for both accuracy and grammatical correctness. In addition, playin-ny’s managing editor, Grant Lucas, goes over almost every single thing published — sometimes more than once — and his years of experience are always helpful for spotting things that may have been otherwise missed.
You can read more about how we assemble our stories in our editorial guidelines.
Get in touch
If you are a member of the media and need additional information, contact us at [email protected]. You can also visit our media inquiries page for more information.
If you have concerns about something you’ve read on-site, are interested in working with us, or simply want to tell us that we’re doing a great job, we’d love to hear from you! It might take us a day or two, but we will respond to your questions as soon as we can. Thanks for stopping by at playin-ny!