Following the defeat of a bill that he ushered through the Congress in the 1990s, senior Utah Senator Orrin Hatch has indicated that he will soon put forth a new sports betting bill that would once again attempt federal regulation of the sports betting industry.
Hatch: “Improvements in Monitoring and Enforcement”
Hatch indicated that his new bill would be looking to provide for protections for several segments of the sports betting industry. “Parts of the legislation I will be proposing are improvements in monitoring and enforcement that will benefit all stakeholders, sportsbooks, regulators, governing bodies and consumers,” Hatch stated from the floor of the Senate on Thursday. But what Hatch seems more concerned about – as he was when his original bill was passed – was in maintaining the “integrity of the game,” for what that means.
Hatch was instrumental in the passage of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) of 1992. That law basically banned sports betting in any state outside of Nevada (Delaware was also grandfathered in). For roughly two decades it was the “law of the land” – until New Jersey came to the fore.
After initially voting down sports betting in the state back in the early 1990s, New Jersey residents changed their minds and, in 2012, passed sports betting regulations in the state. As the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement drew closer to enacting those regulations, however, the major professional sports leagues – Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Hockey League (NHL) and the National Football League (NFL) – along with the major collegiate regulatory agency, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), filed suit in federal court.
For roughly the past six years, the battle raged between the two sides, even though some sentiments had changed regarding the sports betting question on the leagues’ side. After losing the first couple of appeals, things were looking bad for New Jersey until the U. S. Supreme Court decided to hear arguments on the case. In December 2018, the two sides presented their cases in front of the highest court in the country (to what seemed to be sympathetic ears) and everyone waited for the decision.
When that decision came down, it was stunning. Instead of issuing a rejection or even a limited passage, the justices of the Supreme Court voted 7-2 to outright overturn PASPA, stating that gaming was a decision “left to the states.” The decision did NOT say that the federal government couldn’t have regulation on the industry, however…it just said that PASPA was unconstitutional in its approach to the subject.
Since that Supreme Court decision, several states have opened up their casinos and, in some cases, have opened up online sports betting operations. Along with New Jersey, Mississippi and Delaware are now in action with sports betting operations. Pennsylvania, who passed sports betting regulations along with their new online gaming industry regulations, and West Virginia will join the party at some point soon.
Why is There Action Now?
The move by Hatch to bring new sports betting legislation in front of the Congress is a bit of a surprise. In the midst of a midterm election, such a discussion isn’t normally heard because of the divisiveness of the issue. But Hatch, who is retiring at the end of his current term in the Senate in January 2019, sees this as his final chance to impact the discussion on the issue.
Much like former Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, Hatch is looking to seal his legacy by getting some form of regulation passed on sports betting. For Kyl, who was a vehement anti-online gaming crusader, he actually looked at passing online poker legislation prior to his retirement in 2012. In passing the online poker legislation, however, Kyl would have gotten total bans on any other type of online gaming – casino, sports betting and otherwise – that would have cemented his legacy.
Hatch seems to be trying to attempt this same trick. By getting a “PASPA 2” put through the Congress before he departs, he is trying to frame the debate for perhaps the next couple of decades on the issue. Hatch isn’t worried about protecting the entities in the industry, he is more interested in preventing the industry from coming to life.
The time grows short for any passage of a major bill like this, however. The Congress will be going on vacation on September 3, with the midterm elections approaching. There will be a period following those elections – the “lame duck” sessions – which will allow for this Congress to take up its final issues. Although Hatch is retiring and there may be some sentiment to give him something to go to retirement with, there may not be enough time to get the legislation through both the House of Representatives and the Senate for the signature of the president.
