New paper highlights importance of New Jersey sports gambling case

October 18, 2017 | By JONATHAN WOOD

The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Michelle Minton has a new paper highlighting the importance of the Supreme Court ruling the right way in New Jersey’s challenge to the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. As Michelle explains, and PLF, CEI, Cato, and WILL explained in our amicus brief in the case, PASPA has been a failure. From Michelle’s paper:

A little-known law enacted by Congress in 1992, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), barred all but a handful of states from enacting laws to legalize the activity. As the name implies, its purpose was to protect sports from corruption. Some believed increased gambling on games would increase the likelihood of match-fixing. Yet, over the last 25 years, PASPA has failed to stop the spread of illegal sports gambling, prompted the rise of an enormous gambling black market, increased criminals’ profits, prevented states from raising millions in tax revenue and enacting consumer protections, and made stopping corruption in sports more difficult

The consequences of PASPA extend beyond the black market for gambling. New Jersey’s challenge is one of the biggest federalism cases the Supreme Court has considered in years. You can find out more about the case from our amicus brief, my contribution to a SCOTUS blog symposium, and this blog post on the potential environmental impacts of the case.

The Supreme Court has scheduled oral argument in the case for December 4. So we should have a sense for how the Court is leaning on the case soon.