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This is one article in an ongoing Gambling 911 series on 2016 Presidential candidates and their views on gambling issues.
Of all the candidates running for the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is by far the most gambling-friendly.
Under his stewardship as governor, the Garden State legalized sports betting and online gambling, and most recently, Christie has called for casinos to be allowed in parts of New Jersey other than Atlantic City, where the state's eight casinos are all located.
Christie wasn't always so pro-gambling, though.
Early in his tenure as the state's chief executive, Christie opposed legalizing sports betting.
But after several Atlantic City casinos started failing, he changed his mind, saying sports betting would give the casinos in A.C. a lure to draw in gamblers, because the only other state where you could legally place a bet on a game was Nevada.
So in 2012, Christie signed a bill that authorized sports betting at casinos and racetracks in the state.
Amateur and professional sports leagues, however--the NCAA, NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball--opposed the move, saying betting would tarnish the integrity of their sports.
The leagues, citing a 1992 Federal law that barred legal sports betting from states that didn't already have it, went to Federal court, sued and won, and sports betting was thwarted.
Then last year, the New Jersey state legislature and the governor attempted to circumvent the earlier Federal court decision by again legalizing sports betting, but this time using different wording for the law in regard to how the sports betting would be operated.
The sports leagues sued again and won again.
So, as New Jersey plots its next legal move in its continuing effort to get sports betting underway, the situation remains in limbo, but through no fault of Christie.
Christie early in his tenure also opposed a bill legalizing online gambling for the Garden State.
In 2011, when the state legislature presented him with a bill to sign that would have legalized Internet poker and other casino games, he vetoed the bill.
In vetoing it, however, he said he wasn't actually against legalizing online gambling.
He said he vetoed the bill because, among other reasons, he feared the broadly-worded bill would permit Internet casinos to be operated not just by land-based casinos and tracks in the state but also by bars, restaurants and other businesses.
In 2013, the state legislature passed a modified version of its earlier online gambling bill--the new version addressed the governor's concerns--and this time Christie signed it, making New Jersey just one of three U.S. states (along with Nevada and Delaware) to allow Internet gambling.
Then three months ago, when asked during a radio interview if he supported casino expansion to other parts of the state--right now the state constitution only allows it in Atlantic City--the governor said he did.
"I certainly would be supportive of getting this question done as quickly as we can, so we could move to expand it, if that's the will of the people," Christie said on WKXW, a Trenton radio station. "I think, given the competition around us, it would be the right thing to do, as long as there's a provision to have some of the revenue to help Atlantic City and help some of the workers down there who have lost their jobs because of the downsizing."
Although he hasn't addressed the issues of sports betting or online gambling as a Presidential candidate, it seems quite possible that if Christie were to be elected President of the United States, he would be supportive of legalizing both activities nationally.
"Vote for me and have legal sports betting and online gambling in all 50 states!"
It would make quite a campaign slogan.
By Tom Somach
Gambling 911 Staff Writer
