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Solicitor General puts the nails in the New Jersey sports betting law’s coffin

By Derek Helling

Mar 16, 2017; Buffalo, NY, USA; New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (middle) watches from the stands before the first half of a game between the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the Princeton Tigers during the first round of the NCAA Tournament at KeyBank Center. Mandatory Credit: Timothy T. Ludwig-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 16, 2017; Buffalo, NY, USA; New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (middle) watches from the stands before the first half of a game between the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the Princeton Tigers during the first round of the NCAA Tournament at KeyBank Center. Mandatory Credit: Timothy T. Ludwig-USA TODAY Sports /
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The United States Solicitor General issued his opinion on a petition from the state of New Jersey to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, and it wasn’t the outcome that New Jersey wanted.

For almost five years, the state of New Jersey has attempted several appeals to the initial ruling that its attempt to legalize sports betting at the state’s casinos and race tracks violated PASPA, which is the federal law making gambling on sporting events illegal. With the decision from the Solicitor General announced on Wednesday, the New Jersey sports betting law is essentially dead.

After Governor Chris Christie signed the bill into law in 2012, a suit was immediately filed by the NCAA, NFL and other professional sport entertainment corporations. They claimed that the law harmed their businesses by compromising the integrity of their games, which are their primary products. That set in action a chain of events that has seemingly finally ended in Wednesday’s announcement.

Through one lost appeal after another, the final hope for the law to be reinstated was a review of the federal district court ruling declaring the law unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court could have found a flaw with the lower court’s ruling had they decided to review the case, which is theoretically still possible but very unlikely after the recommendation to pass by the Solicitor General.

While this likely means the battle over this particular law challenging PASPA is over, the war is far from over. The issue of whether the exemptions that allow gambling on sporting events in Nevada should be applied elsewhere, along with conversations of the potential repeal of PASPA, is on-going. Similar laws could be passed in other states, and while they may result in similar litigation, it’s likely that if enough of these challenges surface, the Supreme Court will eventually take up one of the cases.

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It’s still possible, as well, that New Jersey could draw up a new law and reprise its role as the state leading the charge to challenge PASPA. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen, but what’s certain for now is that this particular attempt seems to have failed.