NJ Courier Post Editorial: Scrap federal ban on sports betting

[clevfan]

March 25, 2009

EDITORIAL FROM: CourierPostOnline.com

Scrap federal ban on sports betting


It is unfair that a federal law bars sports gambling in 46 states but allows it in four states.

March is traditionally a slow time of year for Atlantic City's 11 casinos -- a problem made worse this year because of the national recession.

But March -- college basketball's season of madness -- could be better for the casinos if the decision on whether to legalize betting on professional and college sports were left up to the states. New Jersey could then possibily legalize sports betting with voters' approval.

Monday, state Sen. Raymond Lesniak, D-Union, filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice that seeks to overturn a 1992 law that makes betting on sports legal in Nevada, Oregon, Montana and Delaware and illegal in the other 46 states.

When the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act was passed by Congress in 1992, New Jersey was given a chance to allow sports gambling in casinos here. State lawmakers failed to act and their window of opportunity closed.

But Lesniak's lawsuit makes a case that is sound: How can federal legislation that allows an activity in four states and doesn't allow it in 46 states be legal?

Having the federal government dictate different rules to different states on the same issue is fundamentally wrong. Rather, it should be up to each state individually to decide how much and what types of legalized gambling there can be.

Despite the federal law, sports gambling is easier than ever in the United States because it's not just shady bookies taking bets. Dozens of Internet gambling Web sites based in other countries pull in billions of dollars a year from U.S. customers who submit their bets on games through the Internet. Americans bet as much as $380 billion a year illegally on sports, according to the National Gaming Impact Study Commission.

A consultant hired by one of the lawsuit's plaintiffs, the Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Association, estimated that legal sports betting could become a $10 billion-a-year industry in New Jersey by 2011.

The added revenue would surely help preserve jobs in Atlantic City's casinos and at racetracks and could help add jobs. It could also help bring back some of the bettors who've stopped coming to Atlantic City since slots parlors opened in Pennsylvania.

Delaware lawmakers have been considering ways to implement sports betting there and could have a sports betting lottery running by this fall's football season.

It is unfair that Delaware officials can make that choice while a federal law bars New Jersey from even entertaining the idea.

We think Lesniak was right to file the lawsuit. Before it drags through the courts for years, Congress should act by scrapping the 1992 law and letting all states make the decision for themselves of whether to allow sports betting.

[clevfan]

EDITORIAL FROM Gloucester County Times


Don't fund fight on sports bets

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

It's good to see somebody in New Jersey file a lawsuit against that wacky federal law that allows sports betting in four states but bars it in 46 others, including ours.

It's better to see that New Jersey taxpayers at large aren't paying for this court challenge. Who knows if its odds are any better than a 14th-seeded team on your college basketball bracket?

The suit was filed Monday and announced by state Sen. Raymond Lesniak, D-Union, who is a plaintiff, along with the Interactive Media Gaming Association and two horse-racing groups which presumably are paying the bulk of the attorneys' fees. Lesniak is also a much-frustrated proponent of trying to bring legalized sports betting to our state.

You'll find no preaching here about whether this is a good idea, but there is a new sense of urgency about it. Delaware Gov. Jack Markel last week proposed sports betting at his state's racetrack/slots parlors and some other sites. And Delaware with Montana, Oregon and, of course, Nevada is one of the four states where the federal ban does not apply.

Frankly, as Lesniak's lawsuit states, the 1992 ban doesn't make much sense these days from a discrimination standpoint. But, if the suit succeeds, and every state can have sports wagering, it's unclear how that is a panacea for New Jersey jobs, for our casinos in a revenue tailspin, or for what's left of the state's horse tracks.

New Jersey also hosts several professional sports teams whose two-faced leagues say they oppose (the now mostly illegal) betting that fuels interest in their games. Delaware faces no big-league, we'll-play-elsewhere retaliation. Nonetheless, New Jersey's situation isn't helped if a state right across the bridge has exclusive East Coast rights to take bets on a big game.

What's strange here is that the Atlantic City casinos which presumably would gain most from an immediate ability to open sports books aren't the driving force in this lawsuit. Online gaming promoters are, and the casinos usually see them as natural predators.

This should be our casinos' war to fight, if they so desire. But as long as New Jersey taxpayers aren't writing the check, fight on.