Yesterday, New Jersey voters approved a referendum that would allow sports betting in the state if a federal ban on sports betting is lifted.
But first, a federal ban on sports betting in all but four states would have to be lifted by Congress or overturned by the courts for New Jersey to offer wagering on professional and college teams.
It’s smart that New Jersey is allowing sports betting to take place at racetracks, because who would bother driving to Atlantic City to make a $50 wager on a game from northern New Jersey or New York or Pennsylvania. Perhaps this will lead the way to New Jersey having racinos at those same racetracks in the future. But what’s next?
- After the federal ban is lifted (which is rumored to be done already) casinos will have to undergo a major transformation.
- Atlantic City casinos will have to buy DirecTV or some kind of satellite system to show the games that people can bet on. Currently, casinos mostly show basic cable and local sports. It’s pretty much BS that I could never watch a Jets game in Atlantic City. This will not be acceptable if they begin to take wagers on all sports.
- Atlantic City casinos will have to figure out which boxing or MMA matches they can show, if any. Currently Pay Per View events are controlled by the casinos hosting the events and usually only shown on their properties. Will Caesars get back into hostin boxing matches since they own four eleven Atlantic City casinos?
- Sports and racebooks will have to be expanded to show more than just horse racing and to be able to facilitate more bettors and viewers.
Studies show that there will be a boatload of money earned from sports betting for the casinos to make these changes (and more).
Citing a University of Pennsylvania study conducted last year, Pascrell (a lobbyist who is working with Raymond Lesniak on the sports betting campaign.) also said sports betting is expected to generate more than $10 billion in annual wagering. New Jersey would get an 8 percent cut of the betting action through the state’s gross wagering tax.
Again, this is all just in the early stages and quite frankly I don’t believe these numbers are real but we’ll have to see. For more information on the approval of sports betting in New Jersey take a look at the Press of Atlantic City and Covers.com.
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Las Vegas Writer, Marketer, Consultant. I love Vegas and everything about it. When in Vegas do 3 things: eat, drink & gamble.
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Like u said Marc, this will only be a good move for NJ (& for AC in particular) if they go the whole nine yards like its done in Vegas. Otherwise, what`s the sense of betting on something you can t even watch ? I cant speak for others, but it wouldn`t work for me at all without being able to see the game (or boxing match) to see if my team (or fighter) won.
I still wont make a special trip to AC just to bet on sports, but it could still an cool add-on activity once you`re already there if it`s hooked up right. Only time will tell.
If the income is close to what they’re projecting the casinos will have a lot of incentive to treat sports betting with the respect of a billion plus dollar business (per casino).