A federal appeals court has rejected New Jersey’s latest attempt to bring legal sports betting to the Garden State.

On Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the US Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 against New Jersey’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling barring implementation of its latest sports betting legislation. The ruling (read it here) is the second time the Third Circuit has stymied the state’s plans to tear down the 1992 federal PASPA law that restricts legal sports betting to four states, and actual single-game sports betting to within Nevada’s borders.

In 2014, New Jersey passed legislation to repeal state-level prohibitions on sports betting at state racetracks and Atlantic City casinos. The state argued that this plan was fully in line with arguments by their opponents – the US Department of Justice, the four major pro sports leagues and the NCAA – that there was nothing in PASPA that prevented New Jersey from choosing not to enforce PASPA’s edicts so long as it didn’t expressly authorize or license betting operations.

THE RULING