"Our casinos are suffering, our racetracks are dying, and our state budget needs revenues," Lesniak said.
He said the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, under which only four states are permitted to have sports gambling, "blatantly discriminates" against other states.
"How can Congress say to the people of the state of New Jersey, 'You do not have this right that the people in Nevada do?' " Lesniak asked.
He contends, among other things, that the federal law does not uniformly regulate commerce and is overly broad and vague.
Nevada, Delaware, Oregon, and Montana were "grandfathered" into the 1992 law, giving them exemptions that allow them to permit sports betting.
Nevada allows the widest scope of such gaming, and Montana has some gambling on games, too. Delaware is looking to add sports betting in time for the 2009 National Football League season. Oregon in recent years scrapped its betting on sports.
New Jersey had a window to decide if it wanted to join the four states with exceptions, but several legislative attempts to do so fell short.
Lesniak said those decisions ceded a multibillion-dollar gambling industry to organized crime and backroom arrangements. Despite the ban, he said, sports gambling exists everywhere from bookies to office NCAA Tournament pools.
A study funded by the Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association, which joined Lesniak as a plaintiff, estimated that sports betting could become a $10 billion-a-year industry in New Jersey by 2011. The group's chief executive, Joe Brennan Jr., said taxes and fees from that gambling could bring $100 million a year to state coffers.
If the lawsuit is successful, Lesniak said, lawmakers would still have to approve which types of bets would specifically be allowed, and voters would likely get a direct say, too. The study assumed betting would be allowed in casinos and racetracks, on the Internet, and by phone.
