The Daily Journal – The odds on New Jersey successfully legalizing sports betting in the state continue to get longer and longer. But officials might as well keep rolling the dice and hoping for the best.
A three-judge federal appeals panel last week rejected New Jersey’s effort to overturn a ban on sports betting in all but four states — Nevada, Oregon, Delaware and Montana — that had signed on for the right to conduct sports betting in the early 1980s. New Jersey had its chance too at that time, but didn’t bother.
Now, however, state officials see sports betting as an avenue to generate more tax revenue and to potentially inject some life into the moribund Atlantic City casinos. Gov. Chris Christie is on board, having pledged to fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. A majority or residents also want sports betting legalized, approving a voter referendum in 2011. But some high-powered opponents have lined up against New Jersey, most notably all of the major professional sports leagues and the NCAA. Their stated fear is that an expansion of legalized sports betting threatens the integrity of the leagues because of the supposedly greater possibility of gambling-related scandals.
Such concerns are not only overwrought, however, but hypocritical — sports gambling is already rampant all across the country, and where legal avenues don’t exist, technically illegal methods are plentiful, and don’t necessarily involve seedy bookies and threats of broken body parts. The National Football League in particular thrives on gambling — legal and illegal — as even casual fans are typically well aware of point spreads and betting trends, but league officials are loathe to admit it. They don’t want to get rid of gambling. They just want it to stay the way it is.
