Monmouth Park is after sports leagues
The New Jersey racetrack is suing major sports leagues for more than US$150 million.
US.- New Jersey’s racetrack Monmouth Park has sued US sports leagues for more than US$150 million for taking part in the blocking of the possibility to allow sports betting in the state in the last four years.
The owner of the racetrack, the New Jersey Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association Inc, believes that the revenue was lost because it was wrongfully blocked by the sport leagues since 2014. It is now targeting the NCAA and professional leagues including the NBA, NFL and MLB.
“The leagues made a losing bet. It’s time to pay up,” said the racetrack owner says in the federal court filing, in reference to the US$3.4 million bond from 2014 they took out after they sued to block a state law that aimed to legalise sports betting.
The leagues have until the end of the week to file a formal response to the racetrack’s legal claims. Monmouth Park accused the leagues of fighting sports betting while creating close relationships with fantasy sports operators. The NHL, NBA and MLB have ownership stakes in DraftKings and FanDuel, the biggest operators of DFS in the US.
Ronald J. Riccio, the racetrack’s attorney, said: “The commissioners falsely described to this court in meticulous detail the catastrophic consequences they swore would follow from the spread of sports betting. None of this was close to being true.
“Behind this court’s back, each commissioner’s league and team owners made huge profits from the spread of sports betting, both on the outcome of their games and their players’ performances in their games”
On the other hand, the attorney for the leagues, Jeffrey A. Mishkin, will argue that the racetrack was not wrongfully enjoined when the court decided to block it from betting services. The federal law was constitutional at the time, therefore they were not engages in bad faith by challenging the state law, the attorney said.
