The Democrat Governor for New Jersey, Jon Corzine, has won his battle to join a legal challenge to a Federal law preventing his state from offering legal sports wagering despite objections from the US Department Of Justice.
The original legal action was filed by the Interactive Media Entertainment And Gaming Association (iMEGA) in a US District Court in New Jersey in March and seeks to overturn the Professional Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1991, which prohibits all but four states, Nevada, Delaware, Montana and Oregon, from offering state-licensed and regulated sports wagering.
US Federal Judge Tonianne Bongiovanni granted Corzine’s motion to intervene in the case and requested that his attorneys file their complaint no later than November 12.
The plaintiffs argue that the current law is unconstitutional because it favours certain states by allowing them to reap tax revenue from legal sportsbetting while barring every other state from doing so.
“It’s nice to clear this hurdle and move closer to a court considering the merits of our challenge,” said Joe Brennan, Chairman for iMEGA.
“It’s ridiculous that the Department Of Justice opposed the motion. We expect they’ll now ask the court to have all of the plaintiffs thrown out for lack of standing. It’s a waste of time and effort but it seems they’ll do anything to prevent the court from examining this law.
“The irony is that the Department Of Justice actually opposed this law when it was enacted on the very same grounds we’ve listed in our suit.”
However, it remains to be seen whether Corzine will join the suit after Republican Christopher Christie ousted him in Wednesday’s Gubernatorial elections. Many voters disapproved of the first-term Democrat’s handling of the recession, which has left the state with budget deficits and the highest unemployment rate in three decades.
Forty-seven-year-old Christie became the first Republican elected to a state-wide office in New Jersey in twelve years and promised to ‘turn Trenton upside down’.
Source: iGamingBusiness.com
