ATLANTIC CITY - Do New Jerseyans want to be able to wager on professional sports at Atlantic City casinos or horse-racing tracks? You bet!
A poll released yesterday shows respondents favor legalizing sports betting in the nation's second-largest gambling market by a ratio of more than 2-1.
The Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll comes four weeks after a state lawmaker, an online gambling association, and others sued the U.S. Justice Department to overturn a law that restricts sports betting to four states, including Delaware. Sen. Ray Lesniak says New Jersey and other states are missing out on a large source of revenue that's now going to organized crime.
Pro sports leagues oppose the idea, arguing against anything that they say casts a shadow on the integrity of the games.
"Betting on sports is not an uncommon practice for many New Jerseyans," said Donald Hoover, a professor in the university's International School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, and a former casino executive. "But for the most part, the state doesn't supervise it, doesn't tax it, and doesn't take any revenue from it."
That is one of the main arguments Lesniak and others make in favor of opening up sports betting to the 46 states where it is banned. Estimates of illegal sports betting in the United States vary widely, but range as high as $380 billion a year, according to the National Gaming Impact Study Commission.
A consultant hired by one of the lawsuit's plaintiffs, the Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Association, estimated that sports betting could become a $10 billion-a-year industry in New Jersey by 2011 if it were permitted in casinos, at racetracks, online, and by telephone. That could generate nearly $100 million a year in tax revenues for the state, according to the group's chief executive officer, Joseph Brennan.
The statewide telephone poll of 728 randomly selected registered voters was conducted from March 30 through April 4. It has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.
Among the findings:
63 percent said they supported making sports betting legal at the 11 Atlantic City casinos, while 32 percent opposed it. Men favored it, 69-27, while women's support was softer at 58-36.
63 percent also supported allowing sports betting at horse-racing tracks. 30 percent opposed it.
48 percent supported allowing sports wagering at off-track betting parlors, and 43 percent opposed it.
66 percent opposed legalizing sports betting by telephone and the Internet.
Lesniak's lawsuit, filed March 23 in U.S. District Court in Newark, seeks to overturn the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. The 1992 law restricts sports betting to the four states that met a deadline to sign up for it: Nevada, where Las Vegas sports books determine the odds for sporting events across the country; Delaware; Montana; and Oregon.
The law carved out an exemption for New Jersey, giving it a chance to decide whether it wanted legal sports betting. The state failed to enact a law that would have done so, and the exemption window closed.
The lawsuit argues that the U.S. law is unconstitutional because it treats four states differently than the 46 others. It names U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Ralph Marra Jr., New Jersey's acting U.S. attorney, as defendants.
The Justice Department has not yet filed a response to the lawsuit.