State of New Jersey has filed its U.S. Supreme Court appeal

In the latest round of its long-running legal battle to get around the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act and legalise intrastate sports betting (see previous  reports) the state of New Jersey is relying on the court’s application of a bedrock constitutional principle, the Associated Press news agency reports this week.

New Jersey has filed its Supreme Court brief in what is probably the last of a series of court battles over the past three years in which it has so far been unsuccessful.

The brief argues that the federal US Congress is barred from forcing states to repeal or reinstate their own laws under the nation’s Constitution.

At the heart of the current initiative is a 2014 state law that repealed prohibitions against intrastate sports gambling at casinos and racetracks. That law was a tactical move following earlier judicial decisions on PASPA which the state had lost, and rested upon the repeal of prohibitions instead of approving gambling.

However, the tactic failed to stand up in subsequent federal court and appeal court proceedings, leading to the current and possibly finally throw of the dice in the US Supreme Court.

Aligned against the state are the major US sports leagues and the US Department of Justice, whilst the US states of Mississippi, West Virginia, Arizona, Louisiana and Wisconsin have joined New Jersey’s brief to the Supreme Court.

All parties have submitted briefs and must now await the Court’s decision sometime in January on whether the issue will be among those it chooses to consider. In 2014 an earlier iteration of the case was submitted to the SCOTUS but did not make it onto the court roll (see previous report).

The case will be closely watched, especially by the trade body the American Gaming Association, which has recently become far more aggressive and involved in advocating the widening of the US sports betting market, estimated to be worth billions of dollars annually.

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