New Jersey is taking sport betting appeal to the Supreme Court

New Jersey, the Garden State, is one of the main US states that has provided gambling since the early 1920s. The famous boardwalk located in Atlantic City has been the gaming icon for many Americans since the era of the prohibition. Nowadays, Atlantic City and many other cities in New Jersey, have developed new land-based casinos that also offer luxurious stays at their beautiful resorts. Black Friday was one of the dark periods of the online gaming industry in the United States after the Federal government shut down the whole market. A few years later, the online gaming industry started the negotiation with the Federal government to reopen one of the most lucrative markets that makes profits in any corner of the world.

New Jersey is probably the only one of these gaming states that is really fighting to a new online gambling market in the country as states like Nevada are being opposed by coalitions and groups formed mainly by Sheldon Adelson, Las Vegas Sands Corporation, owner of several land-based casinos in the state. But that opposition from Las Vegas Sands has not been able to stop New Jersey from filing the first sports betting appeal so that the U.S. Supreme Court can start working on reopen the market. New Jersey's Governor Christie and the state Attorney General’s office took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court last month of February. The appeal is trying to overturn an obsolete federal law that, for over 20 years, has banned horse racing tracks and land-based casinos from operating sports bets. New Jersey's Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association has also filed its appeal as support of an outrageous situation that bans New Jersey but not Nevada.

Ted Olson, one of the brightest attorneys in the country, explained this situation to us: "The basic principle of equal sovereignty is being violated by the act because it allowed Nevada to keep its full-scale sports betting industry and three other states to maintain limited sports betting. For a law to violate both principles simultaneously is practically unheard of. Yet that is what it does: It impermissibly trenches on the States’ authority to regulate their own citizens, and it does so in a manner that discriminates among the States. That double-barreled infringement on the sovereign prerogatives of the States calls out for review".