Washington (CNN) Outgoing New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie sat in the front row at the Supreme Court on Monday to hear a case challenging the constitutionality of a federal law that bans most states from sports betting.

Several of the justices seemed sympathetic to parts of New Jersey's states' rights arguments, which could yield a victory for New Jersey and other states who seek to legalize sports betting and tap into what some say is currently a $150 billion per year illegal industry.

The controversy started in 2011, when New Jersey voters approved a measure to legalize sports betting to help the casino industries in a faltering economy. But the state law was immediately challenged by professional sports leagues and the NCAA, which pointed to a federal law passed in 1992 that bans state sports betting with some exceptions.

The law is called the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act and it makes it unlawful for a state to "sponsor, operate, advertise, promote, license, or authorize by law" sports wagering. Nevada was exempted from the law, and three other states -- Montana, Delaware, and Oregon -- had already enacted sports lotteries and were allowed to continue to do so. At the time, New Jersey could have allowed sports wagering if it had acted within a year of the law's effective date, but New Jersey chose not to.

By 2012, the state had changed its mind and passed a law to allow sports betting. Sports leagues challenged the law citing the 1992 law, and they won in federal court.

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