Ruling allows Arizona sports betting to begin

A judge has refused to block a new law in the US state of Arizona allowing sports betting to be run by professional sports teams, allowing the major gambling expansion to start as planned.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge James Smith refused to issue an injunction barring sports betting from starting tomorrow, Thursday. The ruling came just hours after he held an unusual Labor Day hearing on the request filed by one Native American tribe.

The Yavapai-Prescott Indian Tribe wanted the law, which allows professional sports teams to get licences to run sports gambling, declared unconstitutional.

They argued it violates the state’s Voter Protection Act by illegally amending the 2002 voter initiative that authorised tribal gambling in Arizona by allowing non-tribal groups to have gambling operations without asking voters to weigh in. Proposition 202 restricted gambling outside tribal reservations.

But Smith wrote that Proposition 202 regulated the types of gambling allowed at tribal casinos, not other kinds of betting.