Bet on it: Garden State residents want some sports-gambling action!
New Jersey voters last night passed a referendum calling for legalization of sports betting at state horse tracks and Atlantic City casinos.
The measure was declared victorious less than an hour after polls closed. With 91 percent of precincts reporting, 65 percent of voters were in favor of the measure and 35 percent against.
Despite the win, Jersey sports gamblers still have a way to go before they can legally lay their bets.
Passage of “Amendment 1 — Expand AC Wagering Allow Sports Betting” marked just the first step toward challenging a federal law banning sports action in all but a handful of states.
Those states were grandfathered in by the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992. Only Nevada takes bets on individual games in all major pro and college sports.
The Delaware lottery runs NFL parlay-card games at First State racetracks.
ersey state Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Elizabeth), a longtime backer of legalized sports betting, vowed to cash in the voters’ mandate by introducing legislation that will touch off legal challenges to the federal ban.
“New Jersey voters have sent Congress a message that its law, which has allowed sports betting in Las Vegas, but not in Atlantic City, is unfair,” said Lesniak.
“I’m confident the federal courts will see that injustice, as well as the law’s other constitutional infirmities, and overturn it.”
A leading gaming-industry expert said last night’s landslide will make it harder for courts to back the federal ban.
“How do you justify this, discriminating against New Jersey? It’s like Congress saying New Jersey movie theaters can’t run sound,” said I. Nelson Rose, a professor at Whittier Law School in California.
“It is going to be difficult to find a constitutional reason why [some] of the states can have sports betting, but New Jersey cannot.”
But the legal issues could take several years to resolve.
Gov. Chris Christie said he voted “yes’’ on the question.
“I think it’s important for New Jersey to have this option and I don’t think it’s fair if it’s restricted to just a few states. Gaming is surrounding us everywhere,” he said.
Sports betting could generate $225 million in additional revenue for the Atlantic City casinos and for tracks like the Meadowlands, just a short ride from Manhattan, supporters said.
Opponents had argued that sports betting is addictive and will generate only a fraction of the revenue it does at Las Vegas casinos.
The NFL, while enjoying the hype brought by sports betting every autumn Sunday, has long been one of the major institutions to oppose it.
League officials declined comment last night on the one-sided returns in Jersey.
The sports-betting ballot question came as New York and other states are increasing gambling as a way to boost revenue and create jobs.
New York just opened a “racino” at Aqueduct that offers slot machines and electronic table games — the first gambling parlor of its kind in New York City.