The billions of dollars bet on sports on the East Coast will continue to be done so illegally, for now.
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a ruling prohibiting New Jersey from bringing legalized sports betting to the state’s race tracks and casinos.
Two of three Third Circuit judges ruled in favor of the major professional sports leagues suing to stop New Jersey. The decision was released Tuesday and is another blow to the state’s efforts to revitalize its sagging gaming industry with Las Vegas-style sports betting.
But there is still hope for New Jersey sports betting fans — most notably, the U.S Supreme Court, which, according to gaming attorney Griffin Finan, vacated or overturned five of six appeals from the Third Circuit in the last term.
New Jersey Sen. Raymond Lesniak vowed to continue the fight and sees hope in the dissent between the three Third Circuit judges.
“We will continue to fight this injustice by either appealing to the US Supreme or the entire Court of Appeals,” Lesniak said in a statement. “For the first time, a judge has ruled in our favor. That gives us hope that others, either Supreme Court Justices or the entire Court of Appeals for our District, will allow New Jersey to enjoy the economic benefits of sports betting now reserved exclusively for Nevada.
“Super Bowl week or Final Four weekend in Las Vegas is jammed packed while Atlantic City is a ghost town,” Lesniak added. “That’s just wrong. The only other beneficiary of the court’s ruling today is organized crime run sports betting rings and offshore sports betting Internet sites.”
The state has 45 days to request another hearing at the appeal level and 90 days to ask the Supreme Court to review the case. Only four of nine Supreme Court judges need to express interest in taking the case in order for it to be accepted. The leagues are expected to try to prevent this if New Jersey elects to go to the Supreme Court.
For now, Nevada is the only state that can offer legal single-game sports betting. Delaware, Oregon and Montana also are allowed to offer limited forms of sports betting. Delaware, through its sports lottery, is the only state currently capitalizing on its opportunity.
After receiving overwhelming support from voters, Gov. Chris Christie signed legislation in 2012 that legalized sports betting in New Jersey. The NCAA, NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL sued, saying New Jersey’s efforts violated the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), a 20-year-old statute that prohibits sports betting in all but the four states mentioned above. The leagues believe expanded legalized sports betting will hurt the integrity of the games. The Dept. of Justice joined the leagues’ side in February.
New Jersey believes PASPA is unconstitutional, because it gives certain states rights that others don’t have. New Jersey also says the leagues have not proven that expansion of legalized sports betting will damage the games’ integrity.
In its ruling, the Third Circuit acknowledges there are strong views of whether gambling on sports is harmful to the games’ integrity and whether states should be allowed to license and profit from it. “But we are not asked to judge the wisdom of PASPA or New Jersey’s law. We speak only to the legality of these measures as a matter of constitutional law,” it says in the ruling.
The National Gambling Impact Study Commission estimates as much as $380 billion is wagered illegally on sports annually.