In the real world, the American sports landscape marches on unscathed, 2 1/2 years after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that opened the door for any state to offer Las Vegas-style sports betting.
But in the long-running sequel to that six-year saga won by New Jersey state officials, the state’s thoroughbred horsemen remain locked in a legal battle with five major sports organizations that has yet to even result in a determination about a $3.4 million bond posted by the leagues way back in 2014.
The question of whether the horsemen can seek far more extensive damages for the period from 2014-18 — when a federal judge prohibited sports betting at the horsemen’s Monmouth Park racetrack based on the ultimately invalidated Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992, or PASPA — has now been pushed back until after a Jan. 13 hearing on the original bond.
The ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge Freda L. Wolfson earlier this month, reached without oral argument on the issue, fulfills a directive of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in September 2019 that invalidated a prior lower-court ruling. The three-judge panel found that the horsemen had been “wrongfully enjoined” from offering sports betting and therefore were entitled to seek compensation.