New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was in Mexico last week on a trip that was aimed at improving his foreign-policy credentials but undermined his reputation for frankness by refusing to talk about immigration while south of the border. But upon his return he did even more damage to his prospects for 2016 by announcing a decision to allow Atlantic City casinos and New Jersey racetracks to allow betting on sports. In doing so, the governor not only doubled down on a failed bet that gambling revenue will save the state but also gave more ammunition to opponents who are already convinced that he is not a conservative.

Christie earned his reputation as a straight talker largely because he was willing to confront municipal unions and refused to continue to fund a Hudson River tunnel project that the state couldn’t afford. But his strong support for an increased reliance on gambling to revive a faltering Atlantic City economy did not get the same national attention. But instead of helping bring the resort back, the massive investment on the part of the state in gambling did nothing to save businesses that were already doomed. The closing of two large casinos in the resort at the end of the summer season was a severe blow to Christie’s policy. The collapse of the new Revel casino was a particular embarrassment since, as Breibart.com noted when its demise was announced, Christie had put $260 million in state tax rebates in the scheme to build it.

The collapse of the $2 billion project on Christie’s watch cannot be entirely blamed on the governor but he does bear responsibility for the state’s role in the mess. Nor was that the only government connection. The New Jersey state pension board invested another $300 million in a hedge fund with a stake in the casino.

But the problem here isn’t just the gloomy business environment in the shore resort. It’s that rather than honestly facing the city’s problems and seeking a diversification of investment that might give the place a chance, Christie insisted on pouring more money into gambling at a time when there was already ample reason to believe Atlantic City’s time as a gambling boom town was over. With neighboring states like Pennsylvania building their own resorts as well as competition from Indian reservations, Christie’s foolish investment in even more gambling was never going to work. But, as savvy state political observers noted, it was popular with unions that stood to gain jobs in the short term from the investments.

Yet even if we are prepared to give Christie a pass for his mistake in betting on gambling in the past, his latest gambit—legal sports betting—shows him and New Jersey to be hopelessly addicted to gambling revenue.

Christie, who is joined in support for sports gambling by some state Democrats, thinks allowing betting on major sports is the ticket to save an industry that is over-saturated in the region. Given the massive amounts of illegal betting on sports, especially football, the notion of allowing the state to get a share of that bonanza makes some sense. But, as was already amply proven over the last 30 years, Atlantic City is not Las Vegas. What works in the latter may not prove profitable in the former. Moreover, the major sports leagues have already tied up the state’s efforts to get in on the action in court. That’s why Christie’s announcement that the state would not prosecute casinos and racetracks that allowed sports betting caught these operations by surprise since they know any money spent on this may be a sunk cost if the courts rule against them.

Just as important for Christie, if he persists in this policy it will mean that his battles with some of the most popular sports businesses in the nation will be going on when he is presumably planning to run for president. The idea of campaigning in states where he needs the support of evangelicals and conservatives while putting the weight of his state behind efforts to expand gambling will make it even harder for him to pretend that he is someone who shares the values or the interests of core Republican voters. The leagues will argue, with some justice, that what Christie is doing would put the integrity of America’s most beloved pastimes in jeopardy. That he will be pursuing that crusade merely in order to pay for New Jersey’s government rather than seeking to trim it will also not play well in GOP primaries.

Christie may believe that Bridgegate won’t hurt him and that he can fake his way through foreign-policy questions that betray his lack of experience as well as his paucity of knowledge about such questions. But his gambling dependence problem is not something that can be wished away in a conservative primary. In a field where he may face candidates who have better conservative credentials, a betting habit won’t help Christie close the sale with Republicans.

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