New Jersey's always been progressive when it comes to gambling. The Garden State allowed in-person sports gambling back in 2012, and its successful challenge of PASPA at the Supreme Court opened up sports gambling across 39 states. Now, New Jersey is taking another progressive step forward by decriminalizing underage gambling.
Bill A5086 would make any underage gambling offense a civil penalty instead of a criminal offense. While every bill has opponents, this one saw near-unanimous acceptance, passing the Assembly with a 73-1 vote.
The bill now moves on to the Senate.
Declutter The Courts
To be clear, this change does not make underage gambling legal. Instead of taking underage gambling offenses to court to clog up an already crowded system, those guilty will receive a fine.
Previously, an underage gambling offense would come with a $1,000 fine and could include up to six months of jail time. Bill 5086 would remove any possible jail time, but would fine any offender with increasing fines up to a maximum of $2,000. Fines start at $500 for the first infraction, would double to $1,000 for a second infraction, and double yet again to $2,000 for any other infraction.
The same penalty would be levied on any casino employee or license holder if they allowed anyone underage to gamble.
But instead of the fines going to the general state coffers, all fines collected would go to prevention, education, and treatment programs for compulsive gambling. Since 2018, calls to 800-GAMBLER have risen a shocking 277% per the CCGNJ. The CCGNJ also found that 72% of college undergrads who gamble wanted to put a stop to their gambling.
Bill Has Issues...For Some
Again, the bill received near-unanimous support in the Assembly, but some still believed the bill could do more. Some think it should make it mandatory for any offender to receive treatment. That particular critique came from the CCGNJ: "Such education is all the more critical at a time when youth gambling is on the rise to a troubling degree. More and more New Jersey citizens need help due to the ongoing expansion of gambling opportunities."
That was already attempted in the last session of the Assembly with Senator James Beach's bill S1599, but that bill never made it out of the Senate. Perhaps that's why this latest attempt has foregone mandatory treatment.
Another critique of the bill is that, should it pass, the disincentive of a criminal penalty would allow for underage gamblers to proliferate even further. Which carries some truth, but it's not as if that disincentive has been working at keeping underagers from gambling.
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