Professional sports leagues came out swinging Monday against New Jersey’s sports betting law, largely because it doesn’t compensate them for keeping watch for corruption.
State lawmakers brushed back those concerns, telling the leagues that such payments aren’t going to happen.
The disagreement is one of several that New Jersey lawmakers are facing as they race to legalize sports betting after winning a case in the U.S. Supreme Court.Members of the state Senate and Assembly are taking up a bill that would authorize sports betting.
Sports books are already legal in Nevada, but they could be sprouting up in New Jersey soon
Officials from Major League Baseball, the NBA, and the PGA Tour testified against the bill, saying the leagues need the integrity fee payments, as well as additional tools like information sharing and real-time data controls to make sure betting is conducted honestly.
However, they stopped short of threatening to sue to block the law, saying they hope to negotiate the desired changes.
The integrity fee does not exist in Nevada, which previously legalized sports gambling.
Bryan Seeley, a former federal prosecutor who now serves as senior vice president and deputy general counsel for MLB, said his office was created due to a sports betting scandal: the 1919 World Series that was intentionally lost by the Chicago Black Sox in league with gamblers.

Eight members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox were paid by gambler Arnold Rothstein to throw the World Series to the underdog Cincinnati Reds. The guilty players all received lifetime bans
‘Any law to authorize and regulate sports betting must put consumer safety and sports integrity first,’ he said in prepared testimony. ‘It must recognize that without our games and without a product that fans can trust, sports betting cannot exist. ‘
Dan Spillane, senior vice president and assistant general counsel for the NBA, said sports betting is a unique industry, ‘which builds its product entirely on another business (i.e., a sports league), imposes substantial risks on the other business, and requires the other business to spend more to protect itself, all without providing compensation or a voice in how the underlying product is used.’

The punishment for gambling in baseball is a lifetime ban, as former Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose learned in 1989
But Ralph Caputo, a Democratic Assemblyman and former Atlantic City casino executive, unleashed a high, hard one at the sports leagues, barely disguising his anger over their legal opposition that led to the case making it to the Supreme Court.
‘You guys are in it to make money,’ he said. ‘This is hypocrisy. Nine years of fighting the state of New Jersey, and you come here? It’s disgraceful. Just a suggestion: You may want to write a check to the state of New Jersey for $9 million for all the money we lost’ fighting the league in court.
Some familiar with the matter see the integrity fee as more of a content fee because leagues like the NFL and NBA already police themselves internally in an effort to keep gamblers’ influence out of their respective sports.
‘That to me is a sort of mis-characterization,’ said attorney Irwin A. Kishner, a partner and executive chairman at Herrick, who specializes in sports law. ‘All leagues currently have very robust integrity features in how they run, govern, and operate. They have investigative forces.
‘What the concern is, is that there will be so much more money now,’ he continued. ‘But obviously, it was the same thing with illegal gambling.’

New Jersey’s Monmouth Park could offer full-tilt sports gambling by this weekend

New Jersey gamblers who have been limited to betting at casinos or on horse and dog races will soon have the opportunity to wager on the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, and the NHL
The bill approved by the Assembly committee set the tax rate for casinos at 8.5 percent, with an additional 1.25 percent payment to help Atlantic City pay down its debt. The 1.25 percent add-on fee for tracks would be split among the host community and the county in which the track operates. Internet bets would be taxed at 13 percent.
New Jersey won a Supreme Court case last month overturning a federal law that limited sports betting to only four states. Individual states are now free to pass laws legalizing gambling.
New Jersey lawmakers hope to legalize betting by the end of this week in their race to be among the first states to offer sports betting at casinos and racetracks following the court ruling. Delaware plans to take sports bets starting Tuesday.
Dennis Drazin, president and CEO of Darby Development LLC, which runs Monmouth Park, said he hopes to start taking bets on Friday if the Legislature approved a bill the day before.
In addition to the Monmouth Park, Meadowlands and Freehold Raceway tracks, the bill would also make the former Atlantic City Race Course, in Mays Landing, eligible to offer sports betting – if it were to reopen. It closed in 2015 and needs significant work.

Commissioner Adam Silver was hoping the NBA would be paid an ‘integrity fee’ as a way of compensating the league for policing itself internally against potential corruption