The U.S. Supreme court may have rebuffed New Jersey’s attempt to overturn a federal ban on sports betting, but that isn’t stopping the state’s legislature.
Just days after the Supreme Court denied the state’s appeal to overturn the federal ban, both houses of the legislature overwhelmingly approved a bill that essentially removes any state laws banning sports betting.
The bill was approved by the state Senate 38-1 and by the state Assembly 63-6-2.
Supporters of the bill say sports betting is needed to turn around the state’s racetracks and Atlantic City’s slumping casino industry.
“We are in desperate need of innovative ideas to combat the continuous downturn in New Jersey’s gaming industry in both Atlantic City and at our racetracks,” said Assemblyman Al Caputo (D-Essex), one sponsor of the bill and chairman of the Assembly’s tourism and gaming committee. “This is an opportunity to kick-start this industry in a way that is unprecedented along the East Coast and generate substantial revenue for our state as a whole.”
State voters approved a referendum allowing sports betting and the state passed a law allowing it. However, the country’s professional sports leagues as well as the NCAA opposed the law saying it would hurt the integrity of their sports.
The U.S. Department of Justice then opposed the law saying it violated a 1992 federal law called the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, which prevents states from licensing or regulating sports betting—except for Nevada, Delaware, Montana, and Oregon.
New Jersey repeatedly lost the battle in federal courts and the Supreme Court recently declined to hear the state’s last legal appeal.
Governor Chris Christie, who favors legalized sports betting, said it was time for the state to “move on” after the decision.
But state Senator Raymond Lesniak—the main sponsor of the bill and an avid proponent of sports betting—had promised to keep fighting. He introduced the new bill saying federal law only prevents the state from licensing and regulating sports betting.
Lesniak said the DOJ has written in its own legal briefs that the federal law does not “obligate New Jersey to leave in place the state-law prohibitions against sports gambling that it had chosen to adopt prior” to the law’s adoption.
Lesniak’s bill repeals older state laws barring sports betting in New Jersey and allows private companies to open up wagering operations that do not require state regulation.
“The purpose is to get sports betting going at our casinos and racetracks as soon as possible without interference from the federal government or anyone else,” Lesniak said.
Lesniak wants to see sports betting in place at the state’s racetracks by September.
It’s unclear, however, if Christie will sign the bill into law.
