Lesniak Insists New Jersey Will Have Legal Sports Betting This Year
Are you ready to place sports bets in New Jersey? You very well could be by the end of the year if one New Jersey lawmaker gets his way.
New Jersey is going to offer legal sports betting one way or another according to the author and numero uno champion of New Jersey’s online gaming bill, State Senator Raymond Lesniak.
Lesniak’s determinism on this particular issue dates back some five years and has him now stating that sports betting will be offered at New Jersey race tracks in time for the upcoming NFL season.
One way or another
Lesniak said “one way or another” but as you’ll soon see, one way is pretty standard and noncontroversial while the other could open a whole new can of worms.
The first way, the noncontroversial way, towards legal sports betting in New Jersey would be to win their current case that is now sitting in the Supreme Court, which the SCOTUS will soon be taking a look at to see if it’s a case they want to preside over.
If the Supreme Court decides to not hear the challenge to PASPA (The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992) it would be on to Plan B for New Jersey, the controversial way, as the second way would be for New Jersey to call the bluff of the US Government and see if they want to take New Jersey to court over what would be the state offering intrastate sports betting, much the same as Nevada casinos currently do.
It all comes down to PASPA
Interestingly it was Lesniak’s initial calls to challenge PASPA that led to New Jersey’s online poker / casino bill. Noting Lesniak’s willingness to push for sports betting Joe Brennan decided to approach the senator about introducing an online gambling bill and found a very willing participant and ally.
Without rehashing the whole story, or getting into the minutiae of PASPA (you can read my previous article on that here) here is the gist of the case:
In 2009 New Jersey Senator Raymond Lesniak filed a lawsuit calling the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection of Act of 1992, unconstitutional. Lesniak later introduced a bill that New Jersey voters passed in a referendum that would allow sports-betting within the state.
A number of professional and college sports leagues filed a lawsuit against New Jersey over this, which has now landed at the feet of the Supreme Court. The court is expected to decide in the very near future if they will hear the case or not.
New Jersey is challenging that PASPA discriminates (due to three states receiving exemptions, most notably Nevada) and it prevents states from changing their laws.
It should also be noted that when PASPA was introduced in 1992 New Jersey was eligible for a waiver but never filed in time.
Lesniak’s latest comments
The Press of Atlantic City is reporting that Lesniak made the following comments on Tuesday, strengthening his already resolute resolve on this matter: “I would place a bet on the Giants to cover the spread over the Lions.” It “would be the first sports bet legally placed in the state of New Jersey, at least under the laws of the state of New Jersey.”
Why race tracks? According to Leniak the race tracks are willing to go against the federal government’s longstanding PASPA law and offer sports betting whereas the casinos in Atlantic City (which have far more to lose and many are owned by companies with gaming assets in other states) are more hesitant to take on the federales.
”I would be more than willing to do it at one of Atlantic City’s casinos as well, but they haven’t indicated that they would be willing to take on that challenge yet, but Monmouth race track has,” Lesniak told the Press of AC.
It will be interesting to see if this is mere posturing by Lesniak or if he intends (with the help of Monmouth Race Track) to defy a federal law.
What could happen
Not everyone is of the same thinking as Lesniak though, as Christopher Soriano, chairman of the Casino Law Section of the New Jersey State Bar Association, told the Press of AC that if New Jersey decided to defy the ban, “the sports leagues and the Department of Justice would probably come with everything to try to stop that, and it would certainly lead to more court battles.”
This is shaping up to be an even larger and more contentious fight than online gaming expansion.
