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The case centers on New Jersey, but it will potentially have national ramifications.

The nine-member U.S. Supreme Court currently is hearing arguments regarding the attack on the federal law that prevents individual states from adopting sports wagering. If New Jersey prevails, the door will be open to the state-by-state adoption of legalized sports betting.

The NFL and other sports leagues have been fighting the effort, even though the NFL has allowed the Raiders to eventually move to Las Vegas. Many believe the NFL prefers that any change to the national gambling laws happens through the legislative process, which can be engineered to maximize the money the NFL would make, for example by being the conduit for betting on games.

The fact that the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case has been regarded as a positive sign for New Jersey, given that New Jersey had failed at all lower levels.

A win by New Jersey would potentially create a Wild West scenario, allowing states to decide on their own the rules for gambling — including the threshold question of whether they even want it. Given the proliferation of lotteries and poker machines and casinos in recent decades, it’s hard to imagine states resisting the temptation to expand the best kind of taxation there is: The voluntary kind.