New Jersey Moving Ahead with Sports Betting

The Associated Press is reporting that New Jersey plans to begin issuing licenses for sports betting as early as January of next year, even though the lawsuit attempting to block this expansion of betting is still in process.  New Jersey continues to be aggressive, putting more pressure on the legal process to concede that historically the conduct of gambling within a state's borders has historically been up to the states due to the states' plenary police power, not given to the federal government under the Constitution.

New Jersey, if it prevails, will have shown its methodical attack on the legality of PASPA was well crafted and executed, both on a legal and political basis.  It is my view that New Jersey will ultimately prevail and each state will decide for themselves if they desire to have sports betting within their borders.

Sports betting is desired by the voters of New Jersey, as shown in this year's poll.  Also, Californians are also in favor of sports betting, with a bill to authorize getting just a step away from making it to the governor's desk for signature.  I expect that bill to be revived next spring.  You can read the blog posts on these polls here and here.

For online operators, don't expect any opportunities in the short-term as this betting will be done at physical locations, not online.  Only online pari-mutuel horse race betting will be the only authorized online sports-related gambling in the USA for quite some time.