\nOct. 21 (Bloomberg) \u2014 The National Football League and three other professional sports leagues sued to block a New Jersey racetrack from accepting bets this weekend on NFL games, as a new law would allow.<\/p>\n
\tGovernor Chris Christie signed a law Oct. 17 that would let racetracks and struggling casinos in Atlantic City offer sports betting. Monmouth Park Racetrack said that day it would take such bets as soon as Oct. 26. In the lawsuit, filed yesterday in Trenton federal court, the leagues ask a judge to block the law.<\/p>\n
\tThe NFL, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League and the National Collegiate Athletic Association \u201cwill suffer significant and irreparable harm\u201d if the state\u2019s casinos and racetracks take sports bets before the judge can determine whether doing so is lawful, according to a court filing today.<\/p>\n
\tU.S. District Judge Michael Shipp held a telephone conference today and ordered lawyers for Christie and other state defendants to file a written response to the suit by tomorrow. The leagues must respond by the next day.<\/p>\n
\tThe renewed push for sports betting comes as Atlantic City\u2019s gambling revenue sags with casinos in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and New York cutting into the New Jersey resort\u2019s haul.<\/p>\n
\tChristie signed the law despite earlier failed attempts to circumvent the U.S. Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, or PASPA, which took effect in 1993 and bans sports betting in all but four states: Nevada, Delaware, Montana and Oregon. He called himself a \u201cstrong proponent of legalized sports wagering in the state of New Jersey.\u201d
\n\tAmendment
\n\tIn 2011, voters approved a non-binding amendment to the state constitution to allow sports betting. In January 2012, Christie, a Republican, signed legislation authorizing sports bets, and the same leagues sued, obtaining an injunction from Shipp that a federal appeals court later upheld.<\/p>\n
\tOn Sept. 9, Christie\u2019s administration declared that casinos and racetracks can offer sports betting without fear of state prosecution or civil liability. Acting Attorney General John Hoffman said sports wagering was legal as long as it didn\u2019t involve New Jersey\u2019s college teams or any collegiate events in the state.<\/p>\n
\tChristie\u2019s lawyers filed court papers saying the U.S. law was intended to restrict the spread of \u201cstate-sponsored\u201d sports wagering that might create a \u201clabel of legitimacy.\u201d To declare that casinos and tracks may operate a sports pool doesn\u2019t grant it legitimacy, they said.
\n\tWagering Laws
\n\tIn its complaint, the NFL claimed that the 2014 Sports Wagering Law, in repealing the 2012 statute, \u201cpurports to repeal any rules and regulations at casinos and racetracks that are specific to sports gambling.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tWhat it doesn\u2019t repeal \u201cis the requirement to obtain a license from the state to operate a casino or racetrack, or the scores of rules and regulations with which casinos and racetracks must comply in order to maintain such a license,\u201d the NFL said.<\/p>\n
\tIn the filing today, the leagues said, \u201cNew Jersey\u2019s effort to thread the needle therefore cannot succeed: the 2014 Sports Wagering Law necessarily violates either PASPA or the New Jersey Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tChristie spokesman Kevin Roberts declined to comment on the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
\tThe case is National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Christie, 14-cv-06450, U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey (Trenton).<\/p>\n
Posted by:<\/strong> sevenout on October 28, 2014, 8:24 pm<\/p>\n \tI wish Christie good luck.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) \u2014 The National Football League and three other professional sports leagues sued to block a New Jersey racetrack from accepting bets this weekend on NFL games, as a new law would allow. Governor Chris Christie signed a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}