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28  MURPHY v. NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSN. 

Opinion of the Court 

sever  the  PASPA  provisions  that  prohibit  a  private  actor 
from  “sponsor[ing],”  “operat[ing],”  or  “promot[ing]”  sports 
gambling schemes “pursuant to” state law.  §3702(2).  These 
provisions  were  obviously  meant  to  work  together  with  the
provisions  in  §3702(1)  that  impose  similar  restrictions  on 
governmental  entities.    If  Congress  had  known  that  the 
latter  provisions  would  fall,  we  do  not  think  it  would  have 
wanted the former to stand alone. 

The present cases illustrate exactly how Congress must
have  intended  §3702(1)  and  §3702(2)  to  work.    If  a  State 
attempted  to  authorize  particular  private  entities  to  en­
gage  in  sports  gambling,  the  State  could  be  sued  under 
§3702(1), and the private entity could be sued at the same 
time  under  §3702(2).    The  two  sets  of  provisions  were 
meant  to  be  deployed  in  tandem  to  stop  what  PASPA 
aimed  to  prevent:  state  legalization  of  sports  gambling. 
But  if,  as  we  now  hold,  Congress  lacks  the  authority  to 
prohibit  a  State  from  legalizing  sports  gambling,  the
prohibition  of  private  conduct  under  §3702(2)  ceases  to
implement any coherent federal policy.   

Under  §3702(2),  private  conduct  violates  federal  law 
only  if  it  is  permitted  by  state  law.    That  strange  rule  is
exactly  the  opposite  of  the  general  federal  approach  to
gambling.  Under 18 U. S. C. §1955, operating a gambling 
business violates federal law only if that conduct is illegal 
under  state  or  local  law.  Similarly,  18  U. S. C.  §1953,
which  criminalizes  the  interstate  transmission  of  wager­
ing  paraphernalia,  and  18  U. S. C.  §1084,  which  outlaws
the  interstate  transmission  of  information  that  assists  in 
the  placing  of  a  bet  on  a  sporting  event,  apply  only  if  the 
underlying  gambling  is  illegal  under  state  law.    See  also 
18 U. S. C. §1952 (making it illegal to travel in interstate 
commerce  to  further  a  gambling  business  that  is  illegal 
under applicable state law).

These  provisions  implement  a  coherent  federal  policy: 
They respect the policy choices of the people of each State