What about sites like fanduel(amazing) and the fact that yahoo now offers money leagues through the site? Are they just pretending these things don't exist?

Whether or not you have to gamble on fantasy sports is irrelevant, it seems. The point is it's legal to do so.

An excellent counter-argument for our side would be: "What the hell are you talking about?"

This is great. We should be happy when the opposition has no real case, is ill-informed, and just starts making things up that can easily be proven to be false. Easy win, no?

Haven't gotten a chance to read it yet, but the article's been updated this afternoon.

The integrity of the game? Think of the children? You can toss those sentiments.

From the deposition of National Football League senior labor litigation counsel Lawrence Ferazani Jr.:

“The National Football League is a revenue-generating business. If the NFL believed that sports gambling would allow it to increase its revenue, the NFL would engage in that activity.”

NFL exec would be shocked to discover there is fantasy sports betting in so many establishments [northjersey.com]

The morality of sb has nothing to do with this.

NOTHING

And NJ would be foolish to get caught up in that argument. It is a red herring. Nobody is saying, under the modern interpretation of the Constitution, that the Feds don't have the power to ban sb. Instead, the argument is that they don't have the power to ban it for some states, but not for other states.

If sb betting is so horrible, then ban it for all states.

There is no way PASPA should survive, but knowing SCOTUS, I'm guessing it will.

The only reasonable argument that I can see, is that NJ was given a year under PASPA to pass a sb law. But that was over a generation ago. No way should NJ be held to that now. Times change.

Ferazani then stood up and immediately walked into a wall, just another of the many things he fails to see right in front of his face.

he just accidentally lied about too many things that time. it's understandable, seeing as he's under tremendous stress lying to people, in public and private, all the time, playing a high stakes game of managing the appearances of a trillion dollar operation.

I started quoting the best of that article, but it ended up being the entre article, so I'll just post this:

NJ sports betting depositions, Part III: an antsy Bud Selig is “appalled” [northjersey.com]

Selig dismissed the idea of fantasy baseball having any parallel to sports betting, and did not seem aware of fantasy baseball leagues playing for significant money.
...

Selig was asked whether baseball fans bet on baseball games, “I don’t know whether they do or they don’t.”

(emphasis added)

Earth to Roger...

Wegner then says, “Well, I mean, Commissioner, the answer is that there has been a law passed in New Jersey. It’s not been implemented. Part of the reason that it’s not been implemented is because of this litigation. My question is just this: If…”

Goodell then interrupts and asks, “Is that true?”

...

Asked for evidence that widespread sports betting legalization would lead fans to be more focused on their bet and less focused on their team, Goodell replied, “Common sense. We don’t do studies on common sense.”

...

His answer for playing NFL games in London, where sports betting is legal:

...“We play by their rules and their laws, and we’re just there for a short period of time,” said Goodell...

(emphasis added)


NJ sports betting depositions, Part IV: Roger Goodell [northjersey.com]

Actually, pretty much everyone (including those who wrote PASPA) versed in Constitutional law accepts that Congress can't ban sports betting, even when there is an interstate nexus (Wire Act), they only ban the business of betting or wagering on sporting events.

PASPA doesn't ban sports betting, it bans States from authorizing new sports betting businesses, Congress enacted PASPA for primarily moral purposes, including “to stop the spread of State-sponsored sports gambling and to maintain the integrity of our national pastime.”

That is the rational basis for the legislation, so far from a red herring, NJ's primary challenge hinges on establishing that there is no rationality in that moral argument.

Since PASPA doesn't actually ban two people in NJ from betting on a sporting event, NJ's equal protection argument is entirely economic (freedoms aren't being infringed, but NJ can't license and tax sports books) which allows for no 'immediate' level of protection, meaning that the leagues (or DOJ if they join) don't have to show that the legislation accomplishes or is effective at achieving it's goal of protecting the leagues, they only need to establish that the goal itself is rational.

The leagues are saying that they are fine with people betting, but somehow new State regulated betting businesses would harm them, which seems preposterous on it's face, but they don't have to establish financial harm, only that expanded sports betting would harm their 'integrity'.

IMO the decision will come down to the Obama administration, which Governor Christie seemed to recognize in his pre-election Sandy butt-kissing tour, because if the DOJ joins with the leagues, PASPA will likely be upheld.

If the DOJ doesn't join, PASPA will likely suffer the fate of IGRA before it, where the high court found that the grant of standing to the tribes to sue States abrogated their sovereignty, and the 'national pastime' shouldn't be given more deference than Native Americans.

So, sports betting businesses authorized pre-PASPA are moral, but those that are authorized post-PASPA are not? Wow! I see your point, NJ will need a modern-day Clarence Darrell to puncture that argument.

No matter how many legalese you mix into the soup, it still boils down to the Goose and the Gander. I have no doubt you have correctly identified the argument that will be made from the pro-PASPA side. I, also, have no doubt it is nonsense.

PASPA is political resolution of dissonance. Congress wanted to stop the business of sports betting, but they couldn't outright ban the activity because of Nevada, so they resolved the conflict with the labored logic you have recounted above. But it is still nonsense. Congress doesn't get an end run around the Constitution because the politics of an issue are hard.

If the business of sports betting is immoral, then it is immoral. And if it is not, then it is not - NECESSARILY

Is the NFL just trying to throw the case? Are they doing this all for show so that they can save face or something? That sounds like the worst testimony ever.

With few exceptions, every law Congress passes these days is a dodge around the Constitution, it's not like there are powers granted to the Federal government that they've failed to exercise; Professor I. Nelson Rose once referred to PASPA as the most unconstitutionally principled law ever passed through Congress, yet it might also be the most technically proficient.

It violates the principles of equal protection without trespassing civil liberties, uniformity while still maintaining a uniform requirement (no NEW sports betting business), commandeering without necessitating State action and abrogation with a fallback to Federal intervention.

But because the jurisprudential hurdle is now so low (prior to the 'New Deal', economic liberty was treated as a 'right') for a statute that only affects the States fiscally, what might be ruled an unnecessary or improper use of Commerce Clause authority if it affected an individual 'right' (to marry e.g.), will likely be found permissible in this case.

Under the 'rational basis' test doctrine, the court could disagree that sports betting is immoral or that it damages the leagues financially, and still be uphold PASPA because Congress historically has been given the discretion to be wrong so long as they aren't completely unreasonable.

Congress found that it would be improper to shut down industry that a few States (primarily NV) had already invested in, and even allowed the extra year for other State(s) (NJ) that were heavily invested in the betting industry to authorize new sports betting, but beyond that it was necessary to curb corruption in sports by forbidding State sports betting authorization.

Were they right? It doesn't matter, so long as it is conceivably possible that they were - and the DOJ joins - NJ will likely be barred from authorizing sports betting.

Great post. Note that in my first post I predict NJ will lose. But not because PASPA is good law, but because modern SCOTUS loves tortured rationale. They bathe their children in it.

BREAKING: NFL, NCAA gain standing from NJ judge in sports betting case [northjersey.com]

Governor Christie, a former U.S. Attorney, had predicted earlier Friday that the leagues would gain standing.
...

“It’s the height of hypocrisy,” Christie said. “We have $380 billion a year being bet on professional sports and college sports in this country illegally. And they say somehow if you make it legal, that will more negatively affect the integrity of the sport. To have government handling the betting, that somehow has less integrity than having criminals handling the betting, that’s what they’re saying. These guys have to be kidding me.”

NJ sports betting: now what, after a judge grants the leagues standing to sue? [northjersey.com]

While the state hardly is likely to want to see the ‘feds’ on hand, they already know they have one way to make the D of J attorneys squirm a bit. Way back in 1991, that department had written a letter to former Senator and current Vice President Joseph Biden expressing serious concerns about the constitutionality of the very law that was passed a year later (Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992) and purports to prevent 46 states from offering sports betting.

What does this mean in terms of NJ offering poker? Will this pretty much slow up everything and potentially stop it all?

I know this as been mentioned over and over again but there are examples upon examples of professional sports leagues flourishing without corruption in countries that openly allow sports betting. The argument that it will damage the sport - that ship has sailed. I can't believe the sports league can make it with a straight face

NJ Congressman Pallone vows to fight on for sports betting [northjersey.com]

...It is absurd for the professional sports leagues and the NCAA to claim that they will suffer injuries as a result of the legalization of sports betting in New Jersey...

wow, a republican giving us a really eloquent argument to use. that doesn't happen often.

Pallone's my district. I remember considering voting against him (but didn't cause his opponent was no better) because he either supported the UIGEA or at least didn't support online poker so this is a pleasant surprise.

This case technically has no bearing on the online gambling bill, and the ruling on standing certainly wasn't unexpected, but Christie may be less inclined to sign an online gambling bill that is constitutionally controversial while the legality of another NJ gambling bill is in question.

In this case he's seen to be challenging a Federal law that is widely viewed unconstitutionally invasive of States rights, but if he were to at the same time then sign a bill that itself raises (State) constitutional concerns, the perception might become that his position is hypocritical and self serving rather than principled - and the fact that both bills expand gambling in his State would be unlikely to help his 2016 Presidential bid.

As for the ruling yesterday, Congress set the bar so low for the leagues to reach Article III standing that the only reason the State likely attempted this argument is to get them under oath essentially admitting that the only purpose this prohibition serves is perception, which while enough to grant standing, may not be enough to override the State's right to self determination.

So long as the DOJ doesn't join this suit and make an argument for a national interest the prohibition serves, I find it difficult to conceive that a court is going to rule that the abrogation of State sovereignty is constitutionally justified simply because '17% of people surveyed would have a lower perception of the integrity of sports if betting were legal'.

Two days ago, 17% of people might have said they thought the world was going to end on Friday, statistics like that might be enough for standing, but are hardly a rational basis to justify barring the States taking a different approach to a historically State issue when the current Federal proscription isn't working.

How is the NJ gambling bill constitutionally controversial?

- WOL