New Jersey sports betting ruling today?

It’s been two weeks since New Jersey federal judge Michael Shipp wrapped up his hearing on the legality of New Jersey’s new sports betting law, advising interested parties that he would give his judgement at the end of February.

The litigation between the state of New Jersey and an alliance of national sports leagues and the Department of Justice has made headlines all over the world, especially in the United States where the new law confronts the federal Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act and is likely to set precedent in states’ rights.

The PASPA allows sports betting in only four US states, including Nevada, and is seen as discriminatory and anti-constitutional by proponents of the wider availability of legalised sports betting.

The national sports leagues filed their case back in August last year and were joined in January 2013 by the Department of Justice, with part of their arguments a somewhat disingenuous claim that PASPA does not force states to do anything…it simply prohibits them from legalising sports betting!

Supporting New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s decision to sign the sports betting bill into state law is the New Jersey Attorney General’s office, the state’s Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, state Senate President Stephen Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver.

New Jersey residents are clearly supportive of legalisation, with 64 percent of them in favour in a referendum conducted late last year.