In this interview with CalvinAyre.com’s Becky Liggero, Benjie Cherniak of Don Best Sports weighs in on the impact of New Jersey’s Supreme Court petition on the US sports betting market.
All eyes are now on the U.S. Supreme Court (SC) as sports betting operators, sports league owners, and state officials eagerly await the outcome of New Jersey’s petition, which seeks to declare the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA) unconstitutional.
A legal win for New Jersey will pave the way for the legalization and expansion of sports betting across all U.S. states, from as far as Connecticut to Hawaii. Currently, only four states—Delaware, Montana, Nevada and Oregon—have met a 1991 deadline to legalize sports betting.
The Supreme Court conducted its first hearing on the case in December, which legal experts describe as a landmark development because the high tribunal only looks at 1-2% of the cases filed on their desk annually.
Benjie Cherniak of Don Best Sports expects widespread ramifications for the industry as a whole whether the SC rules in favor of New Jersey or not.
“The Supreme Court ruling won’t come for another year or so. I don’t know what’s going to happen with that in particular, but we are seeing the trend toward legislation, initially with New Jersey. It’s likely going to happen state by state basis, one way or another as opposed to federally,” Cherniak told CalvinAyre.com.
Nevada, which is the only state to allow single-game wagering, will emerge unscathed since people will still come to Las Vegas for Super Bowl and March Madness, according to the Don Best Sports executive.
“I don’t think there’s going to be much of an impact at all. Vegas has been augmenting its sales on a year-by-year basis for a decade plus now. They’ve just passed the 5-billion mark in turnover,” Cherniak said. “Vegas is going to be a win-win for Nevada.”
As for the fate of internationally-regulated operators, Benjie Cherniak believes that they will slowly lose some of their customers to North American-licensed firms.
“I don’t think that the internationally-regulated operators will disappear overnight but we are going to see a gradual shift away from the internationally-regulated operators to the North American-regulated operators,” he said. “Ultimately, people would prefer to be with regulated-American entities.”
