Abstract
While there are myriad factors impacting historical trends in gambling revenues across America, this Note will focus specifically on the legal treatment of sports gambling. In 1992, Congress passed the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (“PASPA”), which banned sports gambling nationwide, with a few exceptions such as Las Vegas. Under PASPA, all states had a one-year grace period after the statute went into effect where they could legalize sports gambling within their state and escape PASPA’s pending ban. Although New Jersey failed to take advantage of this loophole during the grace period, state legislators attempted to legalize sports gambling twenty years later when voters approved an amendment to the state constitution in 2012. After a three-year legal battle with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (“NCAA”) and the National Football League, National Basketball Association, National Hockey League, and Major League Baseball (“the Leagues”), that progressed all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, New Jersey ultimately lost its initial attempt to legalize sports gambling.
Recommended Citation
George R. Brand,
Breaking the Ban: Sports Gambling, Anti-Commandeering, and Lots and Lots of Money,
84 Mo. L. Rev.
(2019)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/mlr/vol84/iss3/9