Federal judge strikes down New Jersey sports betting News
Federal judge strikes down New Jersey sports betting

[JURIST] A federal judge for the US District Court for the District of New Jersey [official website] on Friday ruled [opinion, PDF] that New Jersey cannot partially lift a prohibition on sports betting, a move the state was taking to boost the struggling horse racing and casino industries. The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) prohibits states from operating a gambling system based on professional or college sports. The outcome was expected as US District Judge Michael Shipp ruled similarly in a decision last year when he upheld [JURIST report] a 21-year-old federal law prohibiting gambling. The federal law bans New Jersey and most other states from authorizing betting on sports. The state argued that it did not want to license or authorize the betting. Rather, it was seeking to end a prohibition, not regulate sports betting. Judge Shipp disagreed, finding that limiting sports gambling to certain places amounts to regulation. The opposing parties, including the NCAA and four major professional sports leagues, contend that the federal law would allow the state to lift the ban entirely, but not to allow sports betting with some conditions, such as limiting it to certain locations and keeping minors from participating. State Senate president Steve Sweeney [official website] stated [AP report] that “the economic impact that sports wagers can have on New Jersey is far too important to simply shrug our shoulders and move on.” New Jersey plans to appeal the decision.

Last year the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit [official website] affirmed [JURIST report] Judge Shipp’s ruling that New Jersey’s sports wagering law conflicts with the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA) [text]. PASPA makes sports betting illegal nationwide except in Nevada, Oregon, Delaware and Montana. Shipp rejected New Jersey’s arguments that PASPA violates constitutional guarantees of state sovereignty and equal protection, saying that if New Jersey citizens disagree with the act, they should seek to have Congress repeal it rather than fight it in the courts. In 2012 JURIST guest columnist Kathryn Young defended New Jersey’s sports betting law [JURIST op-ed], arguing that gambling can effectively increase states’ revenue and should be viewed outside of its negative connotations. There is a presumptive prohibition on most forms of gambling in the US, although restrictions on some forms of Internet gambling were loosened late in 2011 when the Department of Justice [official website] clarified that non-sports online gambling is presumptively legal [JURIST report]. In January 2012 Patrick Fleming [advocacy profile], Litigation Support Director at Poker Players Alliance [advocacy website], argued that the decision bolstered the legitimacy of Internet betting [JURIST op-ed], yet the gambling landscape remains a patchwork of many distinct standards and statutory definitions.