New Jersey Committee takes steps to pair racing and work on casino bills
A schedule of bills which are deliberated to restore the Atlantic City casino will be taken up by an Assembly committee on Thursday in New Jersey.
Members of the Assembly Regulatory Oversight and Gaming Committee will talk about and think over proposals to form a state-run tourism zone in Atlantic City and to decrease the level of casino regulation.
Here, they have also thought of discussing a selection of proposals in order to generate revenue for racetracks.
Gov. Chris Christie has disapproved the strategy of the democrats who keep on fixing a final destiny to gaming and racing by arranging lock-step hearings on the two packages of legislation. Due to this strategy legislators are more in unity on the racing
bills than on the reforms made in gaming.
“The racing bills are essentially done,” said Assemblyman John Burzichelli, D-Salem, Gloucester, Cumberland.
His confidence shows that the Democrats have come up with a legislative plan to generate more revenue in horse racing. And the northern and southern representatives claim they can sustain this revenue.
In September, when the Democrats held a sequence of gaming summits, this goal seemed quite remote.
In July Christie said that in New Jersey horse racing should become self- supporting as a sport and an industry, whereas in order to stay in competition with neighboring states’ casinos, Atlantic City needed the revenue.
Where northern legislators asked for a package of actions to give horse racing intermediary funding as the sport tried to acclimatize, the Democrats responded with three public summits on gaming and racing.
In total, five bills for increasing racing revenues, will be considered by the members.A few proposals will be in effect as quick as this racing season
In 2011 a bill will take effect which reduces the quantity of standard bred race dates at the Meadowlands racetrack from 149 to 100- this is to create elite meets there
which have already increased turnout and the sum spent on wagers at Monmouth Park racetrack’s thoroughbred meets. Also in 2011 the permitting of betting operators to run pari-mutuel betting pools will be brought into effect, this decreases the risk
for betting operators. And the breeding incentives would be paid from Treasury funds, equivalent to the sales and use tax brought into the state by the equine industry.
Also a new agenda will take effect, organizing a new fund to encourage
the breeding, housing and training of horses in the state.
A bill that is designed to work around a federal ban on interstate wagering identifies that the New Jersey Racing Commission would collect an up to now unspecified percentage of the revenue, which may be used to pay for race purses. This Bill allows Internet
wagering at casinos, after the passing of a vote in the full Senate. The bill could take effect instantly, but would take New Jersey into an unexplored intrastate system where only state residents could use the casinos’ online gaming portals. Other actions
would take more time to show an outcome on the racing industry.
Voters will be asked whether or not to agree on sports betting in the state by a resolution in committee Thursday. Whether to hold a ballot vote on that constitutional amendment will be decided by the members. Customers making a bet would be able to place
wagers from casino sites and racetracks.
Three recent bills will also be aired for the first time.
Casinos would now be able to bargain what they would pay for the right to broadcast their races under a proposed change with out-of-state racetracks.
And two new bills which increase the side menu of gambling and wagering options available in New Jersey through the Internet. One expands the state’s existing state-run horse-wagering site, so clients can wager on races in other states. A second bill lets
lottery customers shop for tickets online.
The committee’s hearing in Trenton goes against the hopes of committee member, Assemblyman Vincent Polistina, R-Atlantic who wanted to allow local public comment on the bills that would affect the resort’s future before the hearing. But
Burzichelli said that this request was not made in time.
But Polistina stays firm on his view on two enormous legislative packages.
Polistina said in a packed discussion schedule , “These are pieces of legislation which will have decades of effect,” “The need to rush discussion of them without involving stakeholders shows that the Democrats have turned this into a partisan process.
I will do everything I can do in my power to put some of these bills back on track. We should be working for real reform in Atlantic City, not tying gaming and racing together in any way.”
The Senate side Democratic legislators have moved quickly on the Atlantic City bills.
Two weeks ago Gov. Chris Christie said that he disapproved with pairing the two issues.
“The bringing together of the horse racing issue and the Atlantic City issue doesn’t make sense,” he said in an interview.
He is apprehensive that trying to shift all those racing proposals would decrease the speed of his urgent plan for the gaming resort: “Bringing these two things together is just going to cause more delay for Atlantic City — delay, candidly, that we can’t
afford.”
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