Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-493_jgko.pdf
Page Number: 13.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

9 

Opinion of the Court 

section shall be construed as a grant of civil or criminal reg-
ulatory jurisdiction to the State of Texas. 

JURISDICTION  OVER  ENFORCEMENT  AGAINST 
(c) 
MEMBERS.—  [T]he  courts  of  the  United  States  shall  have
exclusive  jurisdiction  over  any  offense  in  violation  of  sub-
section (a) that is committed by the tribe . . . .”  101 Stat. 
668–669. 

Perhaps the most striking feature about this language is
its dichotomy between prohibition and regulation.  On the 
one hand, subsection (a) says that gaming activities prohib-
ited by state law are also prohibited as a matter of federal 
law (using some variation of the word “prohibited” no fewer 
than three times).  On the other hand, subsection (b) insists
that the statute does not grant Texas civil or criminal reg-
ulatory jurisdiction with respect to matters covered by this 
“section,” a section concerned exclusively with gaming.  The 
implication  that  Congress  drew  from  Cabazon  and  meant 
for us to apply its same prohibitory/regulatory framework 
here seems almost impossible to ignore.  See Part II–B, in-
fra. 

But before getting to that, we start with a careful look at
the statute’s terms standing on their own.  Often enough in
ordinary  speech,  to  prohibit  something  means  to  “forbid,”
“prevent,” or “effectively stop” it, or “make [it] impossible.” 
Webster’s  Third  International  Dictionary  1813  (1986) 
(Webster’s Third); see 7 Oxford English Dictionary 596 (2d 
ed. 1989) (OED); Black’s Law Dictionary 1212 (6th ed. 1990) 
(Black’s).  Meanwhile, to regulate something is usually un-
derstood to mean to “fix the time, amount, degree, or rate”
of an activity “according to rule[s].”  Webster’s Third 1913; 
see  8  OED  524;  Black’s  1286.    Frequently,  then,  the  two
words are “not synonymous.”  Id., at 1212.   

That fact presents Texas with a problem.  The State con-
cedes that its laws do not forbid, prevent, effectively stop, 
or make bingo impossible.  Instead, the State admits that it