Major U.S. Sports Bodies Sue New Jersey Over Sports Betting

The five major sports bodies within the United States filed a lawsuit against the state of New Jersey in an attempt to half the Garden State's attempt to legalize and regulate sports betting.

The lawsuit was filed by the National Football League, National Basketball Association, National Hockey League, Major League Baseball, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

According to news website NorthJersey.com, the lawsuit claims: “Gambling on amateur and professional sports threatens the integrity of those sports and is fundamentally at odds with the principle...that the outcome of collegiate and professional athletic contests must be determined, and must be perceived by the public as being determined, solely on the basis of honest athletic competition."

"The sponsorship, operation, advertising, promotion, licensure, and authorization of sports gambling in New Jersey," the lawsuit states, "would irreparably harm amateur and professional sports by fostering suspicion that individual plays and final scores of games may have been influenced by factors other than honest athletic competition."

Lawmakers in New Jersey passed legislation that would allow the state to challenge the federal Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act which banned sports betting in all but a handful of states. The state's Governor Chris Christie signed the bill into law in May and commented at the time: “Am I expecting there may be legal action taken against us to try to prevent it? Yes. But I have every confidence we’re going to be successful."