Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-476_dbfi.pdf
Page Number: 31.0

Cite as:  584 U. S. ____ (2018) 

27 

Opinion of the Court 

benign than other forms of gambling, and that is why they 
had  been  adopted  in  many  States.    Casino  gambling,  on 
the  other  hand,  was  generally  regarded  as  far  more  dan­
gerous.  A  gambler  at  a  casino  can  easily  incur  heavy 
losses, and the legalization of privately owned casinos was 
known  to  create  the  threat  of  infiltration  by  organized
crime,  as  Nevada’s  early  experience  had  notoriously
shown.31  To the Congress that adopted PASPA, legalizing 
sports gambling in privately owned casinos while prohibit­
ing  state-run  sports  lotteries  would  have  seemed  exactly
backwards. 

Prohibiting  the  States  from  engaging  in  commercial 
activities that are permitted for private parties would also 
have  been  unusual,  and  it  is  unclear  what  might  justify 
such  disparate  treatment.    Respondents  suggest  that 
Congress wanted to prevent States from taking steps that 
the  public  might  interpret  as  the  endorsement  of  sports
gambling,  Brief  for  Respondents  39,  but  we  have  never 
held  that  the  Constitution  permits  the  Federal  Govern­
ment  to  prevent  a  state  legislature  from  expressing  its 
views on subjects of public importance.  For these reasons, 
we do not think that the provision barring state operation 
of sports gambling can be severed.

We reach the same conclusion with respect to the provi­
sions  prohibiting  state  “sponsor[ship]”  and  “promot[ion].”
The  line  between  authorization,  licensing,  and  operation, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  sponsorship  or  promotion,  on  the
other, is too uncertain.  It is unlikely that Congress would 
have  wanted  to  prohibit  such  an  ill-defined  category  of
state conduct. 

2 
Nor  do  we  think  that  Congress  would  have  wanted  to 

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31 See Clary 84–102.