Last week, the latest appeals court refused to hear New Jersey’s sports betting challenge of the 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) law. And Governor Chris Christie immediately announced he would take the fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. If the upper court refuses to hear the case or simply announces that the law is constitutional, New Jersey will have no further recourse and the chance of having the law repealed or amended could be dead forever.
The New Jersey Governor along with other legislators believe the state is being wrongly handcuffed by the law since it has been excluded from offering sports betting despite a referendum in the state which saw over 2/3 of voters indicating they would like to see sports betting offered in Atlantic City and at New Jersey racetracks. The sports leagues and courts, however, have been quick to point out that New Jersey had the opportunity to opt in to sports betting in 1992 and chose not to do so.
Thus, in their views the current objection is sour grapes for a bad decision made over 2 decades ago. Nevertheless, Christie, Ray Lesniak and others have noted that things change and laws are amended all the time, particularly when there are valid reasons why a law should be changed. And given the vast number of changes in the last two decades, particularly with the decline in land based gaming and horse racing; the desperate state of the economy resulting from the financial crisis; and the rapidly changing nature of technology, the law needs to be amended to help save the dying industries and to help the state balance their budget.
New Jersey’s sports betting challenge contends that they should not be held to a decision that was made a generation ago which may have made sense at the time but no longer is logical. Moreover, New Jersey legislators have stated that gambling has always been an issue for the states so PASPA should never have been a federal statute in the first place and even the DoJ at the time of passage indicated the law was probably unconstitutional. Regardless, three courts have ruled against Christie and upheld the validity of the law and with the exception of one dissenting judge in the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals there has been unanimous consent that New Jersey’s arguments aren’t relevant.
Since Christie’s announcements I spoke to several legal and industry experts to get their opinions on Christie’s chances of winning at the Supreme Court and also to gauge whether they believe there is anything that should be done to help increase those odds. Not surprisingly everyone I spoke to seemed to be quite negative that the Supreme Court will even hear the case although a couple of them did suggest the odds could be improved if New Jersey could convince other states to join the suit. As a single state, they are swimming against the tide but if other states join, then the Supreme Court could indeed attach some priority to it, seeing this as a clear 10th amendment issue.
You can read more on the states ongoing sports betting challenge when you visit the OSGA website.
