The U.S. Supreme Court last week declined to rule on New Jersey’s fight against the federal ban on sports gambling in all but four states. To most, that would seem like the final out, the last chance to win has come and gone.
Gov. Christie, one of the biggest proponents of legalized sports gambling in the state, responded that way when asked about the decision. “They said no, so we have to move on,” he said.
State Sen. Ray Lesniak, the champion of the bill that attempted to overturn the federal ban, has other ideas, though. Lesniak, in all his glory, has no plans of dropping the fight.
While he is disappointed with the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear New Jersey’s case, he feels it’s not the final blow to legalized sports gambling in the state.
His solution — unregulated sports gambling. And he says judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit set the precedent for the legality of doing so in their decision last September.
The federal law in question, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992, forbids states from actively encouraging sports gambling in forms such as issuing licenses and promoting the activity, in ways like New Jersey does for its Atlantic City casinos and racetracks across the state. What the law doesn’t do is say that having no law prohibiting sports gambling is unlawful.
Lesniak says the states of Washington and Colorado have set the precedent for this type of unregulated activity. “Federal law prohibits the manufacture and distribution of marijuana, but they haven’t stepped in to stop Colorado and Washington from legalizing it,” according to Lesniak.
He’s right there, but that’s quite the slippery slope. With no regulation on sports gambling, just imagine how corrupt this could become. We’ve all seen movies such as “Casino” and documentaries on the subject — is Lesniak blind to the fact that it could happen all over again in New Jersey? Atlantic City could become the Las Vegas of the 1950s, and no one wants that, not even for more tax revenue.
Will professional sports leagues say they no longer allow franchises to be located in New Jersey because of this unregulation? What about the NCAA? Will the New Jersey Devils and Rutgers University football not be “sanctioned” anymore? It could happen.
Sometimes in life, one needs to realize the fight is lost, that one has been defeated. This is one of those cases, Ray Lesniak. Let it be.
