From NJ.com:
Sports betting may come to Atlantic City as early as this fall despite a federal ban, Gov. Chris Chris Christie announced today at a Boardwalk news conference in Atlantic City. Christie said he planned to submit regulations this week and hoped patrons of the casinos in the resort city and the state’s four horse racing tracks could bet on professional and certain college sports games by October or November.
"We intend to go forward and allow sports betting to happen," Christie said. "If someone wants to stop us, then let them try to stop us."
Christie said he expected legal action from the federal government to try to stop the state from implementing sports wagering, but "I have every confidence we’re going to be successful."
Christie signed legislation in January allowing sports betting in the state after it was approved by a 2-to-1 margin through a nonbinding voter referendum in November.
Supporters say the state is missing out on sorely needed revenue now going to off-shore Internet operations. In addition, casino executives say legal sports wagering will attract more customers to their places, which have seen business drop off sharply in the last half-dozen years because of the weakened economy and competition from neighboring states.
Christie said half of the licensing fees from places with sports betting would be used to finance treatment programs for compulsive gamblers.
A federal law known as the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act limits sports betting to four states that approved it by a 1991 deadline: Nevada, Delaware, Oregon and Montana. At the time, New Jersey was given the chance to become the fifth state but failed to act.
For the past two years, New Jersey lawmakers has been moving toward implementing sports betting.
Two New Jersey congressmen, Rep. Frank Pallone, a Democrat, and Rep Frank LoBiondo, a Republican, are trying to fight the ban in Congress. The state could also go to court to challenge it.
"It’ll be another exciting way to add to the experience here in Atlantic City," Christie said at the news conference, which was intended to kick off the summer vacation season.
Casino executives said today they were pleased with Christie’s approach, though they cautioned that none wanted to be the first to set up an expensive sports betting operation, only to have the federal government shut it down.
"I love the idea of playing offense and having the federal government have to play defense against us," said Tony Rodio, president of Tropicana Entertainment, which owns the Tropicana in Atlantic City and casinos in several other states. "But I don’t know who’s going to want to be the first to open knowing they can shut you down. We’d need a lot more clarity before we invested lots of money in a sports book."
State Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), who sponsored the measure to bring sports betting to Atlantic City, said Christie’s move, "represents one of the final steps in our long journey toward the repeal of an unfair, and ultimately, unconstitutional ban on sports wagering."
"To those with a vested interest in the status quo — the professional sports organizations who take a hypocritical stance that wagering will ‘ruin the purity of the game’ and the Nevada-based gaming conglomerates that have enjoyed the state’s stranglehold on sports wagering for the last 20 years — I respectfully say, ‘bring it on,’" Lesniak said in a statement. "Now that the regulations have been put forward, there’s only one step left, a showdown in the U.S. Supreme Court, where I believe we will prevail."
Sports betting may come to Atlantic City as early as this fall despite a federal ban, Gov. Chris Chris Christie announced today at a Boardwalk news conference in Atlantic City. Christie said he planned to submit regulations this week and hoped patrons of the casinos in the resort city and the state’s four horse racing tracks could bet on professional and certain college sports games by October or November.
"We intend to go forward and allow sports betting to happen," Christie said. "If someone wants to stop us, then let them try to stop us."
Christie said he expected legal action from the federal government to try to stop the state from implementing sports wagering, but "I have every confidence we’re going to be successful."
Christie signed legislation in January allowing sports betting in the state after it was approved by a 2-to-1 margin through a nonbinding voter referendum in November.
Supporters say the state is missing out on sorely needed revenue now going to off-shore Internet operations. In addition, casino executives say legal sports wagering will attract more customers to their places, which have seen business drop off sharply in the last half-dozen years because of the weakened economy and competition from neighboring states.
Christie said half of the licensing fees from places with sports betting would be used to finance treatment programs for compulsive gamblers.
A federal law known as the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act limits sports betting to four states that approved it by a 1991 deadline: Nevada, Delaware, Oregon and Montana. At the time, New Jersey was given the chance to become the fifth state but failed to act.
For the past two years, New Jersey lawmakers has been moving toward implementing sports betting.
Two New Jersey congressmen, Rep. Frank Pallone, a Democrat, and Rep Frank LoBiondo, a Republican, are trying to fight the ban in Congress. The state could also go to court to challenge it.
"It’ll be another exciting way to add to the experience here in Atlantic City," Christie said at the news conference, which was intended to kick off the summer vacation season.
Casino executives said today they were pleased with Christie’s approach, though they cautioned that none wanted to be the first to set up an expensive sports betting operation, only to have the federal government shut it down.
"I love the idea of playing offense and having the federal government have to play defense against us," said Tony Rodio, president of Tropicana Entertainment, which owns the Tropicana in Atlantic City and casinos in several other states. "But I don’t know who’s going to want to be the first to open knowing they can shut you down. We’d need a lot more clarity before we invested lots of money in a sports book."
State Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), who sponsored the measure to bring sports betting to Atlantic City, said Christie’s move, "represents one of the final steps in our long journey toward the repeal of an unfair, and ultimately, unconstitutional ban on sports wagering."
"To those with a vested interest in the status quo — the professional sports organizations who take a hypocritical stance that wagering will ‘ruin the purity of the game’ and the Nevada-based gaming conglomerates that have enjoyed the state’s stranglehold on sports wagering for the last 20 years — I respectfully say, ‘bring it on,’" Lesniak said in a statement. "Now that the regulations have been put forward, there’s only one step left, a showdown in the U.S. Supreme Court, where I believe we will prevail."
