Why sports betting should finally bring NJ property tax relief

New Jersey finally will have legalized sports betting, possibly by Memorial Day at Monmouth Park. If you think legalizing marijuana was going to bring us a lot of money, you ain't seen nothing yet.

In fact, if you were going to bet on which industry would bring in more, take sports betting and give the points. Sports betting, according to the American Gaming Association, could bring in as much as $26.6 billion to our fair state as opposed to marijuana which could "only" bring in about $300 million. How flush would that make new Jersey? How much of it do you think we'll actually see?

As much as I am totally for the legalization of both marijuana and sports betting, the one question that I never see answered is ... "what are they going to do with the money?

I see Gov. Phil Murphy factoring $60 million dollars in tax revenue into his proposed budget, which means that money's vacuumed up into the vortex. What will they do with the sports betting revenue? If we're going to have this, they need to tell us. Imagine a transparent New Jersey? Nah ... couldn;t happen.

When then-Gov. Chris Christie taxed the gas, we got to vote on whether the money got to be used exclusively for road repair. While I get that we have a lot of bills to pay starting with the pension fund, couldn't they throw us a bone by taking some of this money and using it to either cut our property taxes or give us a rebate. That's what will make us voters in New Jersey take notice.

If they're going to use the money to fund education, then show us a reduction in our school tax, which will in turn drop our property taxes. They can start all the programs they want to help everybody they want. Charity starts in the home. Perhaps if you give us more money there, we can start helping ourselves.