New Jersey has always been the vanguard of online gambling in the United States. The Garden State led the fight for regulated online poker and took the battle for legalizing sports betting to the Supreme Court and won. But New Jersey sports betting contains a legal quirk that Assemblyman Michael Venezia would like to change.
Unlike every other state that’s legalized sports betting, New Jersey does not allow wagering on in-state college sports. That’s why Assemblyman Venezia recently introduced ACR140, an amendment to the state’s constitution that would allow state residents to bet on in-state college sports, like Rutgers football.
In order to actually become law, ACR140 needs to be approved by New Jersey voters in this fall’s election. Though that may not be as much of a slam dunk as it seems. A similar effort to remove the in-state college betting ban failed in 2021. That effort was led by NJ lobbyist Bill Pascrell III, who explained its failure to Legal Sports Report saying, “I lobbied hard to get this on the ballot, but I couldn’t convince the industry to wage a campaign. I am not at all surprised that it failed. All polling showed it upside down. It failed because not many voters knew it was on the ballot and many also didn’t understand the question. This is unfortunately a missed opportunity for the industry that can’t be revisited for three years.”
The effort to pass ACR140 into law will likely benefit from increased awareness of sports betting issues as a whole, as well as the possibility that it will be paired with a ban on college prop bets. Regardless, the issue will ultimately be decided by NJ voters in the fall.