Trump threatened to kill online gambling. N.J. just asked Biden to declare it legal.
$6,000 Welcome Bonus
New Jersey is asking the U.S. Justice Department to confirm that online gambling is allowed under federal law, an issue officials thought was settled until the agency reversed course under Donald Trump.
After Justice in 2011 ruled during Barack Obama’s administration that the federal Wire Act did not ban gambling over the internet, New Jersey was one of three states to legalize it. When the coronavirus shut down New Jersey’s casinos for months last year, online gambling and sports betting allowed New Jersey to weather the pandemic better than other states.
But under Trump, the department changed its position and decided in January 2019 that the federal Wire Act did, indeed, prohibit such betting.
New Jersey and 26 other states have asked U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to rescind the Trump administration decision and go to back to the agency’s original interpretation of the Wire Act. Garland was nominated by President Joe Biden, who was vice president when Justice first issued its opinion more than a decade ago.
“It’s time for DOJ to lift the fog of ambiguity surrounding this important national issue,” state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said.
“New Jersey’s legal gambling industry – and the many state services and programs supported by gaming revenue and tax dollars - would have been devastated in 2020 without online gaming. Internet gaming has for years been, and remains, an essential industry here, one the Department of Justice viewed since 2011 as perfectly legal until its baseless backtracking.”
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump’s first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, said at his confirmation hearing in January 2017 that he would revisit the agency’s ruling on online gambling, and the department two years later announced its new interpretation of the Wire Act.
That ruling benefitted the Republicans’ biggest campaign donors, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, who spent $78 million in 2016 and $215 million in 2020, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That was more than anyone else.
The late Sheldon Adelson headed the Las Vegas Sands Corp., and bankrolled a lobbying group, the Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling, to push Congress to outlaw internet gambling. Legislation to do so received a congressional hearing but not a vote.
“We maintained from the start that the Trump-era Wire Act ‘reinterpretation’ was politicallymmotivated and wrong on the law, and we’re proud to now join with our fellow states in calling for its official elimination,” Grewal said.
Online revenue in New Jersey rose to $970.3 million in 2020, more than double that of a year earlier, according to the state Division of Gaming Enforcement.
Internet gambling and sports betting in New Jersey accounted for 46.2% of the state’s 2020 gaming revenue, according to Allison Nielsen, a spokeswoman for the American Gaming Association.
“No other state came close to that share,” she said. “New Jersey would have ended up much closer to the other end of the spectrum without those verticals.”
Despite a 43.7% drop in revenue from casino table games and slots, New Jersey’s casinos fared better than those in any other state but Arkansas and South Dakota, according to the American Gaming Association’s annual report.
Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.
Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him at @JDSalant.
Start your day with the latest from Trenton, D.C. and your town. .
