super-bowl-sports-betting

Despite the efforts of Gov. Chris Christie and state lawmakers, it remains illegal for casinos and horse tracks to run sports bookmaking operations. The Mirage Resort Race and Sports Book in Las Vegas is shown in this 2010 photo.

(Glenn Pinkerton/Las Vegas News Bureau via Getty Images)

TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie and the leaders of the state Legislature have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a 22-year-old federal law preventing them from legalizing sports betting at New Jersey's horse racing tracks and Atlantic City casinos.

The state’s appeal, filed last week and made public today, is a last-ditch effort by the governor and lawmakers. They have been rebuffed at every turn, losing three times in federal court to the NCAA and the nation’s professional sports leagues, which originally brought the high-profile case.

The odds are not in Christie’s favor: About 10,000 petitions are filed with the Supreme Court every year, but the justices agree to hear about 100 arguments.

"It’s not a big number," Jeremy D. Frey, a gaming industry lawyer who has watched the case closely, said today. "You can look at the stats and it doesn’t leave a whole lot to the imagination. I just don’t think they have much of a chance of prevailing."

But the state does have something on its side: It is asking the court to decide where the line between the state and federal governments is drawn — a subject in which the justices have historically shown a keen interest.

"I think they’re going to take the case because it’s of great magnitude — of social issues that have been on the front burner of the Supreme Court in recent years," state Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), one of the law’s chief sponsors, said today.

The sports leagues, which did not comment, have until March 17 to respond.

The state is trying to prove that the federal statute barring states from legalizing or regulating sports betting — the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 — is unconstitutional.

UNFAIRNESS CLAIMED

New Jersey’s lawyers have argued that sports betting is unfairly limited to Nevada, Delaware, Oregon and Montana, which were grandfathered under the act. They also said the act violates the 10th Amendment — which allows states to regulate when the federal government doesn’t — by forcing them to ban sports betting. And they said the federal act "commandeers" the state Legislature.

State Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), the Legislature's chief supporter of legalizing sports betting, is shown in this October 2012 file photo.

"It impermissibly trenches on the states’ authority to regulate their own citizens, and it does so in a manner that discriminates among the states," the state wrote in its appeal. "That double-barreled infringement on the sovereign prerogatives of the states calls out for review."

The National Collegiate Athletic Association — along with the National Football League, National Basketball Association, National Hockey League and Major League Baseball — sued the state in 2012. They claim that allowing wagering on athletics in other states would harm sports in America. The U.S. Justice Department, which joined the case this year, said that’s the reason the sports betting act was passed in the first place.

In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the leagues and the Justice Department when it considered the case last year.

"It is hard to see how Congress can ‘commandeer’ a state, or how it can be found to regulate how a state regulates, if it does not require it to do anything at all," Judge Julio Fuentes wrote in the opinion, siding with Judge Michael Fisher.

The case has cost taxpayers millions of dollars in legal fees and attracted some of the most prominent legal minds in the nation. Two former U.S. solicitors general are representing parties to the case, and Paul Fishman, the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, has argued it personally.

New Jersey officials say legalized sports betting will help Atlantic City’s 11 gambling casinos and breathe new life into the horse tracks.

The owners of Monmouth Park Racetrack filed their own petition with the high court last week.

"It could mean the difference between becoming an economically viable racetrack facility or not," Ronald Riccio, the track’s top attorney, said. "And if Monmouth Park is forced some day to close, it’s going to do significant damage to the entire equestrian industry in New Jersey."

RELATED COVERAGE

• U.S. appeals court leaves Christie with one option in sports betting case

• Christie, other state leaders will continue fight to legalize sports betting in N.J.

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