New Jersey sports betting awaits governor's okay

Despite the unanimous endorsement Thursday of legislation authorizing sports betting in New Jersey and the state’s years-long effort to implement the practice, it could be several weeks before Monmouth Park on the Jersey Shore offers sports bets to its customers, according to the top official at the track.

Dennis Drazin, head of the company that operates the track, said Friday morning that Monmouth will wait until New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signs the legislation before opening its sportsbook for business, at the request of the governor’s office. The state’s racing commission also has sent a letter to Monmouth directing the track to wait until the governor signs the legislation, Drazin said.

“The governor has asked me to hold off, and that’s what we intend to do,” Drazin said.

Murphy has said that he intends to sign the bill, but that “we want to do it right,” according to a report by The Associated Press.

Adding to the delay, Monmouth Park and other racetrack locations in the state will need to get a sports-betting license from the New Jersey Racing Commission prior to taking bets. The racing commission currently believes that issuing a license will require a 48-hour public-comment period, though that interpretation could change.

Racing commission officials did not immediately respond to a phone call.

Both houses of the New Jersey legislature signed off on the bill Thursday, two days after the bills were heard in committee. During those committee hearings, representatives of several sports leagues requested that an “integrity fee” giving leagues 0.25 percent of gross revenues be added to the bill, but the request was flatly rejected by several committee members, including one who accused the leagues of attempting a “money grab” after challenging the states’ efforts to legalize sports wagering in the past.

That has led to speculation that the governor may be listening to the leagues as he reviews the bill. Several sports leagues have said that they will seek federal legislation mandating the so-called “integrity fee” in states that authorize sports betting, and they are lobbying federal legislators for a bill.

New Jersey’s legislature passed the bill two days after Delaware became the first new state to offer single-sports bets since the Supreme Court struck down a federal law on May 11 that prohibited states from authorizing sports betting. Delaware’s three legal locations, all racetrack-casinos, took in $322,135 in bets on the first day, according to the state lottery, which administers sports bets in the state.

The New Jersey bill allows for sportsbooks at racetracks and casinos, and it will allow for online sports betting by the licenseholders 30 days after becoming law. The tax rate for bricks-and-mortar bets was set at 9.75 percent of net revenue, with online bets taxed at 13 percent.

Anticipating the legalization of sports betting, Monmouth Park partnered with the British bookmaking firm William Hill on the construction and operation of a sportsbook at the track several years ago.

The legislation also included several carve-outs allowing for sports betting at facilities that have shared ownership of casinos and professional sports teams. In one case, the Golden Nugget will be allowed to offer sports betting on all sports but professional basketball, since the owner of the casino also owns the Houston Rockets.

Just after the Supreme Court ruling, Churchill Downs Inc., the large racetrack and casino company, said it had reached an agreement to form a partnership with the Golden Nugget on a sports-betting venture in New Jersey, with the partnership planning to take wagers in the first quarter of 2019. Churchill Downs also owns and operates twinspires.com, one of the leading account-wagering companies in the United States.