New Jersey Sues U.S. for Adelson Link to Online Gambling Crackdown

State says DOJ hasn’t responded to a formal request for data
Adelson brick-and-mortar casinos face online gambling threat

Sheldon Adelson
Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg

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By Erik Larson, Christopher Palmeri, and Bill Allison

May 7, 2019 at 4:23 PM UTC

Updated on

May 7, 2019 at 5:51 PM UTC

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New Jersey sued the U.S. Justice Department, claiming it failed to respond to the state’s demand for documents linking a recent crackdown on legal online gambling to lobbying efforts by casino magnate and Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson.

The Justice Department is violating the Freedom of Information Act by not responding to a February request for information about the new enforcement policy’s reported link to Adelson, whose brick-and-mortar casino businesses are threatened by online gambling, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said in a federal complaint filed Tuesday in Trenton.