New Campaign to Legalize Sports Betting Backed by Casino Industry
Scott Morris | June 14, 2017
This week officials from the casino industry launched a new campaign that wants sports betting legalized, which is something officials in New Jersey have been attempting to do for many years.
Casinos are behind the American Sports Betting Coalition, a new group trying to convince Congress to repeal a 1992 federal law that allows wagering in just four states – Delaware, Montana, Nevada and Oregon.
The new measure the coalition wants would allow each state to make its own decision on legalizing wagers and how it would be regulated and taxed.
The American Gaming Association said it was partnering with law enforcement, state and local elected officials and other interests to tell lawmakers in Washington to move aside said the CEO and president of the AGA Geoff Freeman.
The coalition, led by the casino trade, includes elected officials and officials from law enforcement. It lists the National District Attorneys Association, the Fraternal Order of the Police, US Conference of Mayors, National Conference of States and Major County Sheriffs Associations as groups that support its overall principles.
New Jersey has been trying to allow its state to have legalized sports betting at its racetracks and casinos, in order to help its casino industry that has suffered of late in Atlantic City.
The most recent effort by New Jersey could be heard by the Supreme Court, which has not made an announcement yet as to whether it would hear the case. A Third Court of Appeals threw the most recent sports betting law out last August.
Two members of the U.S. House of Representatives Frank Pallone Jr. and Frank LoBiondo introduced a measure that would allow New Jersey to have legalized sports betting.
The goal of the coalition is meet first with the interested parties – the group has talked already with the players’ unions in the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB to talk about what it would be like in a world that has legalized betting on sports.
Legal betting would be taxed to help increase revenue for states, cities and towns and monitored through using the current technologies to determine wagering patterns that could bring questions about a particular sports’ integrity.
