AGA’s brief argues that the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) "prevents States and tribal sovereign governments states from repealing or amending laws that their citizens no longer support.”
The court agreed this summer to hear New Jersey’s challenge to the federal sports betting ban. Arguments are expected to be heard in the coming months with a decision expected in 2018.
"Regulation of sports betting needs to be accomplished in a sensible manner that promotes, rather than thwarts, the strictures and principles of federalism,” the brief states. "PASPA has thus had the perverse effect of pushing an enormous market underground by way of federal decree while stamping out state and local efforts to adapt their own laws pursuant to their own citizens’ wishes.”
Americans have shown a desire to wager on sports. A recent AGA-commissioned national survey by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (GQR) found strong support for legal sports betting. Nearly six in ten Americans – and 72 % of avid sports fans – are in favor of ending the federal ban.
But despite the federal ban, American sports fans continue to wager on games. According to AGA’s brief, "earlier this year, Americans bet an estimated US$15 billion on the Super Bowl and NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament alone, and 97% of those bets were made illegally.”
According to new research by Oxford Economics released earlier this year, legalizing sports betting in the United States would curb the illegal market while supporting up to 152,000 jobs, creating an estimated $26 billion in economic output and generating up to US$5.3 billion in tax revenue.
This summer, the AGA launched the
American Sports Betting Coalition (ASBC) to lead the efforts to repeal PASPA.
The ASBC will lead an all-inclusive advocacy campaign focused on ending the
failed sports betting ban.
The coalition brings together the American Gaming Association’s Illegal
Gambling Advisory Board, and has welcomed organizations such as the Fraternal
Order of Police, National District Attorneys Association, Major County Sheriffs
Association, U.S. Conference of Mayors and National Conference of State
Legislatures who support the coalition principles.
