today
Internet gaming is back on the state Assembly agenda today, with a 12:30 p.m. hearing by the Appropriations Committee on a bill that would allow Atlantic City casinos to become hosts of such wagering.
I warned backers of online poker and other e-casino games (and there seem to be a lot of you reading here) back in mid-March that another Assembly committee postponing a vote on this issue threatened to bury the bill in the months-long budget process that annually consumes Trenton beginning around that time. Supporters thought that a legal opinion expressed by Seton Hall Law School Constitutional scholar John B. Wefing at that March Assembly hearing might keep the issue out front, but that didn’t quite happen:
State Sen. Ray Lesniak, D-Union, the leading backer of this issue in the statehouse, tells me that he is working with Assemblyman John Burzichelli, D-Gloucester, to amend the two bills to identical language as soon as possible. Keep in mind that the statehouse goes dark for the summer once the budget is resolved on June 30 – or July 1, 2, 3, 4….
What would Governor Christie do even if the legislature scrambles its way into approvals in the next two weeks? That’s the billion-dollar question.
Christie vetoed similar legislation last year, in large part on grounds that allowing residents to bet all over the state might run afoul of the state Constitution’s monopoly granted to Atlantic City for such gambling. Wefing concluded that there was no such violation as long as the electronic servers were based in Atlantic City, since no bet would actually take place until it was recognized by those local servers.
When Christie has been asked about the issue in recent weeks, he has sidestepped it by basically saying to get back to him once the legislature actually sends something to his desk.
Christie generally has backed measures that seemingly would help the state’s struggling casino industry, and the official governing body of that industry has now officially supported the new gaming options. Yet it’s still anyone’s bet what Christie would do in this case.
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