Sports and politics can sure make for some strange bedfellows. In the case of federally-legalized sports betting, those bedfellows would be NBA league commissioner Adam Silver and outspoken New Jersey governor Chris Christie.
Christie and New Jersey voters have been weighing whether to approve sports gambling since 2011, when voters overwhelmingly approved a nonbinding bill legalizing the practice. In 2012, Christie signed into law a bill that legalized sports betting in the state.
The move at the time was opposed by the NCAA, NFL, MLB, NHL…and the NBA. The five entities actually sued Christie in 2012 in an attempt to block the legislation. U.S. District Court Judge Michael Shipp ruled at the time that the ban was in fact constitutional, and issued an injunction that prevented New Jersey from initializing the law.
In September 2014, Christie joined New Jersey Attorney General John Jay Hoffman in filing a motion with Judge Shipp. Christie and Hoffman asked Shipp to hold that the state was not required to criminalize sports betting. Hoffman issued a formal opinion that under his office’s interpretation of New Jersey law, privately owned casinos and racetracks could accept sports bets without violating any criminal law.
In October, believing that he had finally found the loophole to do so, Christie again signed into law a bill removing prohibitions against sports wagering in New Jersey.
“As I’ve said all along, I am a strong proponent of legalized sports wagering in New Jersey,” Christie said at the time. “But given earlier decisions by federal courts, it was critical that we follow a correct and appropriate path to curtail new court challenges and expensive litigation. I believe we have found that path in this bipartisan legislative effort.”
Several weeks later however, Judge Shipp issued an injunction against the effort, preventing the state from actually implementing the law.
The week before the judge issued the injunction, Adam Silver seemingly reversed course on the anti-gambling stance that the NBA has had for nearly 22 years, publishing an op-ed in the New York Times that called for a legalized and regulated sports betting industry.
While acknowledging that sports betting will continue in some capacity regardless of full legality in the United States, Silver called for a legalized and regulated betting industry that exhibited, among other things, “mandatory monitoring and reporting of unusual betting-line movements; a licensing protocol to ensure betting operators are legitimate; minimum-age verification measures; geo-blocking technology to ensure betting is available only where it is legal; mechanisms to identify and exclude people with gambling problems; and education about responsible gaming.”
Silver reiterated his stance in a recent interview with ESPN’s Outside The Lines, saying that rather than fight New Jersey and other states, his league can work with them to establish a uniform federal structure that would pave the way for legalization.
“Governor Christie, and I’m happy to join him, should turn his attention to Washington, DC, to Congress, and say, ‘Here are all the reasons it should be regulated, but let’s come up with a framework that makes sense on a national basis presumably that would allow states to opt in.”
Christie rejected the premise, and said during a televised interview shortly after that it was “kind of crazy” for Silver to ask him to help with a legalization push when Silver is technically part of a lawsuit blocking sports betting in his own state.
“I think it’s kind of crazy for the commissioner of the NBA to say, on one hand, ‘Join me, governor, let’s have legalized sports gaming everywhere. But not in New Jersey right now,'” Christie said. “What I call it, quite frankly, is a bait and switch.”
“If Adam Silver believes that sports gaming is OK, then allow sports gaming in New Jersey, allow us to be the model,” the governor said.
While it’s easy to understand Christie’s frustrations, Silver is basically arguing for federal legislation that would enable states to decide for themselves if they want to participate in sports betting. Christie has essentially been looking for ways around a 1992 Congressional act that outlawed the practice in the United States, with the exception of Nevada, who was grandfathered in.
They may have the same ultimate goal, but their opinions on how to get there are slightly different.
Silver’s change of heart is a huge ice-breaker going forward in the ongoing conversation of the legality of sports betting, and his recent comments could go a long way in the influencing both fellow commissioners and legislators on the subject that many see as inevitable.
The latest setback to Christie’s agenda should be a wake up call that his way of doing things is ultimately not going to work, even if he chooses to continue his strong rhetoric publicly. If he truly wants to see his state participate in legalized sports betting, the governor must concede that a federal law that allows states to decide for themselves is the only feasible way that it can happen, even if his time as governor has passed by then.
