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Former New Jersey Republcan Governor Chris Christie deserves a lot of credit for helping to get sports betting legalized across the US.
It was, after all, Christie who brought forward the case challenging the constitutionality of a federal law that banned most states, including New Jersey, from sports betting to the Supreme Court. Oddly enough, nearly all the professional leagues challenged the suit and fought rigorously to prevent the legalization of sports gambling nationwide.
In 2018, the Supreme Court found in favor of the Christie-brought lawsuit and overturned the prior ban.
With states collecting millions in tax money from sports wagering, Christie can claim his efforts have helped boost the coffers of a few dozen states, and such a claim would be accurate. New Jersey alone was fared especially well from this newly created industry.
Now the former NJ Governor is said to be throwing his name into the ring of those Republicans running for President in 2024 as early as Tuesday June 6. He's also going directly after the current frontrunner, former President Donald Trump.
Trump was coming in at -120, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is at +150 and Christie had especially long odds that pay out $12,500 on a $100 bet.
Trump has mostly focused on his direct competitor, DeSantis. The Florida Governor has yet to announce he is running, though all signs point in that direction.
But with Christie sharpening his attacks on Trump, it's only a matter of time before the former President unleashes.
Christie ran in 2016 with his most memorable debate performance featuring an acerbic rebuke of Florida Senator Marco Rubio.
He pointed out that Rubio could do no more than regurgitate a “memorized 25-second speech”, for which Rubio went on to regurgitate a a few memorized 25-second speeches, therefore proving Christie's point.
“You better have somebody on that stage who can do to him what I did to Marco [Rubio], because that’s the only thing that’s gonna defeat Donald Trump,” Christie said during a town hall at Saint Anselm College on Monday.
“And that means you gotta have the skill to do it,” he added. “And that means you have to be fearless because he will come back and right at you.”
After Trump claimed he would be arrested on Tuesday March 21, Christie unleashed an attack on his former friend on ABC’s “This Week.”
“The circus continues. I mean, look, he only profits and does well in chaos and turmoil. And so he wants to create the chaos and turmoil on his terms. He doesn’t want anybody else’s terms … he wants it on his terms."
The former governor has wide name recognition and appears to have overcome a few controversies that cut into his popularity while Governor of New Jersey.
The so-called "Bridgegate" scandal implicated two Christie aides - one of whom was ironically named Bridget Anne Kellie - for their role in shutting down commuter lanes at the George Washington Bridge in order to punish the city of Fort Lee’s mayor for refusing to back the former Governor's 2013 reelection effort. Christie himself did not appear to have played a direct role in this effort.
Though it seems almost laughable now, the real stain on Christie's Governor days seemed to come following a captured photograph of he and his family enjoying a beach day after his administration shut the beaches down to the public during a budget standoff.
If Christie finds a way to capitalize on the sports betting initiative and other positive aspects of his time while Governor (he did get re-elected), "Bridgegate" and "Beachgate" might likely be forgiven.
“[Trump] loves a good fight. Well, so does Chris Christie,” said Jim Merrill, a New Hampshire-based Republican strategist and former senior adviser to Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign, in an interview with The Hill. “I think his comment last night about ‘you want me on that stage,’ it would be must-see TV, that’s for sure.”
- Gilbert Horowitz, Gambling911.com
