New Jersey Vs Sports Leagues: The Garden State's Long Battle For Sports Betting

On October 24, a federal judge ordered an injunction temporarily banning the offering of sports betting at New Jersey casinos and racetracks, just days before the state’s first sports book was due to open its doors at Monmouth Park.
The historic racetrack, like many of New Jersey’s gambling operators, has fallen on hard times lately and wants to limit losses with the potential of even turning those losses into gains.  The track was the only operator initially to embrace the new sports betting laws, which New Jersey Governor Chris Christie hopes will inject life into New Jersey’s ailing casino and horseracing industry, and it is easy to see why. B ritish bookmaker William Hill has offered projections of $75 million in annual revenue for Monmouth Park, figures that are hard to ignore when you are millions in the hole.
The track; however, will have to wait for its sport book.  Following a predictable legal challenge from the four major U.S. sports leagues and the NCAA, Judge Michael Shipp declared that legalized sports betting represented “irreparable harm” to the sports leagues and threatened the integrity of their games.  “More legal gambling leads to more total gambling,” he warned, “which in turn leads to an increased incentive to fix plaintiffs’ matches.”
“This is similar to the way casinos resisted online gambling, citing a thousand ways in which it will destroy society as we know it,” Jacob Fields, an editor at OnlineGambling.us said.  “However, it is the online industry that is rejuvenating the pastime, making it cheaper and more accessible to people.  Surely sports leagues should have the vision to see the beneficial effect of opening the market, and just how detrimental it is to fight progress.”
Déjà vu
While New Jersey hoped it could go it alone, the matter will now be decided in a federal court, with the temporary injunction offering time for due legal consideration.
If it feels like New Jersey has been here before, you are right.  The legalization and regulation of sports betting has been on the agenda in New Jersey since well before 2011, when residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of it in a nonbinding referendum. Legislation was drafted and signed into law by Christie the following year, with New Jersey essentially asserting that it was a state’s right to regulate sport betting within its own borders.  It did not take long for the sports leagues to respond, citing violation of federal law, and the bill was eventually abandoned.
The law in question, the Protection and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA), was originally a bill that sought to define the legal status of sports betting (as opposed to pari-mutuel horse and dog racing) and which effectively prohibited its expansion nationwide.  Exemptions were made for four states – Nevada, Delaware, Montana and Oregon – which had legalized a form of sports betting prior to 1992, with Nevada hosting and still maintaining the most sweeping form of sports betting options around.  Meanwhile, a 12-month window was left open for any state that had established regulated casino gaming for over a decade to prepare legislation to legalize sports betting.  It was a provision that was included solely to benefit New Jersey, since it was the only state that matched the description.
However, these were optimistic times for the Atlantic City casino industry.  With a monopoly on the east coast and just a single newly-opened “racino” in Rhode Island for competition, the city was the second-biggest gambling market in the U.S. and enjoying a period of growth and investment.  New Jersey chose not to take advantage of the opportunity within the short window provided by PASPA.