Comment by drone | Hacker News Reader

Comment by drone | Hacker News Reader

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It's right there in the beginning of the opinion:

The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) makes it unlawful for a State or its subdivisions “to sponsor, operate, advertise, promote, license, or authorize by law or compact . . . a lottery, sweepstakes, or other betting, gambling, or wagering scheme based . . . on” competitive sporting events, 28 U. S. C. §3702(1), and for “a person to sponsor, operate, advertise, or promote” those same gambling schemes if done “pursuant to the law or compact of a governmental entity,” §3702(2). But PASPA does not make sports gambling itself a federal crime. Instead, it allows the Attorney General, as well as professional and amateur sports organizations, to bring civil actions to enjoin violations.

That is, rather than say sports gambling shall be declared illegal, they made it a civil offense for a state to pass a law legalizing sports gambling.

To my lay reading, that law says "separation of gambling and state", akin to the First Amendment on religion. It doesn't ban gambling, it bans the states governments from getting involved in gambling. It seems that unregulated gambling is allowed (or would be, if not for other provisions that grandfathered the existing anti-gambling laws of every state?)

Either way, it looks pretty clearly unconstitutional, since it's making a "constitution-level" rule about how State governments operate.

Sure, but I was asking about the legal reasoning supporting the opinion, not just the facts of the case.

Looks down into the syllabus, I think you'll find 2.(a), 2.(b), and 2.(c) have the key components from their regard:

1) “Congress may not simply ‘commandeer the legislative process of the States by directly compelling them to enact and enforce a federal regulatory program.’”

and

2) "The distinction between compelling a State to enact legislation and prohibiting a State from enacting new laws is an empty one. The basic principle—that Congress cannot issue direct orders to state legislature—applies in either event."

3) "... since the Constitution “confers upon Congress the power to regulate individuals, not States,” ... "There is no way that the PASPA anti-authorization provision can be understood as a regulation of private actors. It does not confer any federal rights on private actors interested in conducting sports gambling operations or impose any federal restrictions on private actors."

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