The Carpetbagging Gamblers Of The Garden State

Good (?) news! The federal ban on sports betting has been lifted. But some places (New Jersey) make it easier than others (New York). What’s a sports fanatic living on the wrong side of the Hudson to do? Migrate.

- David Hill

NFL Opening Kickoff

Thursday, September 5

A train pulls into Hoboken Terminal. Commuters swarm the dim, dusty platform, then disperse, gone as fast as they came. The train disappears, too, back toward Manhattan, and a quiet settles in. A few people remain—a geriatric black man in a sweat suit and sandals, seated on a weathered bench; two potbellied white guys in oversize football jerseys, leaning against a concrete column; a handful of others—and all of them are staring at their phone. They may be strangers, but they belong to the same tribe. These are the carpetbagging gamblers of the Garden State.

They’re not alone. The bettors enter this promised land anywhere along the 108-mile border between New York and New Jersey. They come down Route 17 to Mahwah, order disco fries at the State Line Diner, and wager. They cross the George Washington Bridge and bet in the KFC parking lot in Fort Lee. Some just pull over to the shoulder, whip out their phone, then U-turn back over the bridge. “I know people who drive to the Vince Lombardi rest station just to make their bets,” Chris Christie told The New York Times in June, “and then turn around and go back to the city.” In 2003, the pit stop was described by a trucker to The New Yorker’s John McPhee as “a real dangerous place. Whores. Dope. Guys who’ll hit you over the head and rob you.” Today, the trucker might add to his list the gamblers.