Christie decision delayed until 3 March
The New Jersey governor will reveal his decision on Raymond Lesniak's egaming bill when the state's legislature reconvenes on March 3.
Governor Chris Christie will reveal his decision on intrastate online gambling in New Jersey when the legislature reconvenes next Thursday 3 March sparking seven days of intense lobbying on both sides of the debate.
The Governor of New Jersey, heavily tipped to run as the presidential candidate for the Republican party next year, was expected to make a decision this Thursday, 45 days after Senator Raymond Lesniak’s egaming bill passed on 10 January, however it is thought he will now wait until after the legislative recess that will commence following his budget address to local politicians later today. The next scheduled session day is on 3 March.
Joe Brennan, president of the Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association (iMEGA) told eGaming Review he was confident Christie would sign the bill into law in just over a week’s time but that “no one’s going to argue with the Governor if he wants another week because legislature is in recess”.
The delay will spark a week of intense lobbying from both the pro intrastate iMEGA and the financially powerful pro federal casino group Caesars. iMEGA, and its chief lobbyist Bill Pascrell III, will make a last ditch attempt to persuade Christie to pass the bill into law in order to create thousands of new jobs and raise an estimated US$250m in annual government funds to help reduce the state’s rising budget deficit.
Caesars will undoubtedly see this as a sign that the Governor is perhaps hesitating in his decision to allow New Jersey to become the first state in the US to pass intrastate egaming into law following UIGEA in 2006. The group, that has four casinos in Atlantic City, believes a federal solution to all US citizens would generate far more revenue and that if Christie goes against its wishes in New Jersey, it would scupper the chance for a federal bill to be passed at a later date. Both iMEGA and Caesars have been locked in a war of words for the past year over the lobby group’s efforts to pass a bill permitting Atlantic City’s casinos to offer their games online.
The group, that spent hundreds of thousands of dollars backing the failed Harry Reid federal bill at the end of last year, will be encouraged however, by a recent Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind poll of more than 800 New Jersey voters, showing that 65% of residents are opposed to allowing the state’s casinos to run online gambling. Only 26% are in favour. However, the majority of New Jersey voters are willing to allow betting sports betting, the study found, with 53% saying they support changing the law, up from 45% a year ago, and ahead of 39% who favoured it in a 2010 national survey. Sports betting is currently banned in New Jersey and allowed in only four states.
Senator Lesniak, iMEGA and Senate President Stephen Sweeney are currently contesting a motion by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) to dismiss theirattempt to overturn the 1991 federal law prohibiting state-regulated sports betting. New Jersey voters will vote in November in areferendum in a bid to legalise sports bettingat the state’s racetracks and casinos.
Christie will deliver his annual state budget address in a joint session in Trenton at 2pm today.