New Jersey’s horseracing industry has filed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn an Appellate Court decision blocking the state’s move to allow sports betting at its racetracks and casinos.
Petitions were filed by the New Jersey Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association and by the state. Governor Chris Christie is named in the petitions as he signed New Jersey’s sports betting law.
The petition asserts that the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 that bans betting on sports in all but four states is unconstitutional because Congress does not have the authority to prevent the gambling in states that seek to allow it, according to the Associated Press.
The petition reads:
“PASPA purports to make it unlawful for States to “authorize by law” gambling on sports. In three divided, irreconcilable, and fundamentally incomprehensible decisions, the Third Circuit rejected New Jersey’s challenge that PASPA unconstitutionally commands how it regulates such gambling within its borders”
“This federal takeover of New Jersey’s legislative apparatus is dramatic, unprecedented, and in direct conflict with this Court’s Tenth Amendment jurisprudence barring Congress from controlling how the States regulate private parties. Never before has congressional power been construed to allow the federal government to dictate whether or to what extent a State may repeal, lift, or otherwise modulate its own state-law prohibitions on private conduct. And never before has federal law been enforced to command a State to give effect to a state law that the State has chosen to repeal.”
The petition also asserts that the state’s main thoroughbred track, Monmouth Park in Oceanport NJ, cannot survive without the revenue stream expected from sports betting.
Industry representatives say Monmouth Park is losing an estimated $1 million a week in revenues after a federal Appellate court blocked the state from instituting gambling. Monmouth Park was the only institution in New Jersey that was preparing to offer sports betting immediately after the law went into effect.
In the appeal, the horseman point to the “enormous profits” that the NFL and other pro sports leagues have been making through daily fantasy sports. The horsemen say that daily fantasy sports may be illegal based on the same law that the leagues are using to prevent the state from allowing sports betting, according to the AP.
This is the second time an appeal has been filed to the Supreme Court over a decision to ban sports betting in the state. The state previously had passed a law allowing for sports betting, calling the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992—which bans sports betting—unconstitutional.
The court declined to hear that appeal.
