As expected, the four major professional sports leagues and the NCAA are objecting to New Jersey’s plans to allow sports betting at its casinos and racetracks.
The leagues have filed a court challenge calling the state’s move “astounding,” ”specious” and a “blatant violation” of an earlier court order.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie last month issued a ruling that would allow the casinos and racetracks to offer sports wagering. The state maintains that as long as the wagering isn’t regulated by the state, it does not conflict with a federal ban on sports betting.
The state came up with the interpretation after its failed bid to overturn the federal ban. Though the state lost in federal court—and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a final appeal—lawyers for the federal government arguing for the ban had also argued that the state could revoke its own laws against sports betting and it would be allowed without state regulation.
New Jersey’s Attorney general has ruled that under that argument, it can allow sports betting under a state law enacted in 2012, as long as the state does not regulate it.
However, the sports leagues aren’t buying it.
“Defendants’ latest arguments are nothing more than a blatant attempt to circumvent this Court’s injunction and the federal law that it prohibits defendants from violating,” the leagues wrote.
U.S. District Judge Michael Shipp—who previously upheld the federal ban—is to rule on the state’s move this week. Christie’s office has asked the judge for a ruling.
As of yet, no casino or racetrack has taken any bets, but Monmouth Park racetrack officials have said they want to offer sports betting this year.
New Jersey voters endorsed legal sports betting through a nonbinding referendum in 2011, and the state legislature passed a sports wagering law that was signed by Christie in 2012.
The sports leagues, however, successfully sued to stop the law.
The leagues argue in this new action that the 2012 law envisioned sports gambling being a state-regulated industry and also argue that since casinos and tracks are regulated on the whole by the state, sports gambling would be too.
Christie has not commented on the challenge.
Meanwhile, two New Jersey state senators say they plan to introduce legislation to help clarify the state’s sports betting system, despite the challenge from the leagues.
Democrat Raymond Lesniak and Republican Joseph Kyrillos plan to introduce legislation to the state Senate to reinforce the state’s position. The bill would also set a 21-year-old minimum age for betting.
A similar bill already introduced in the New Jersey Assembly has been approved by the Assembly’s tourism and gaming committee and now goes before the full Assembly.
