Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-493_jgko.pdf
Page Number: 23.0

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

19 

Opinion of the Court 

dissent, the State argues that attempts to distinguish be-
tween  prohibition  and  regulation  are  sure  to  prove  “un-
workable.”  Brief for Respondent 29 (citing 480 U. S., at 224
(opinion  of  Stevens,  J.)).    Indeed,  the  State  suggests  that 
problems  are  likely  to  arise  in  this  very  case.    Under  our 
reading, Texas highlights, courts on remand might be called 
on to decide whether “electronic bingo” qualifies as “bingo” 
and thus a gaming activity merely regulated by Texas, or 
whether it constitutes an entirely different sort of gaming
activity absolutely banned by Texas and thus forbidden as
a  matter  of  federal  law.  And,  the  State  worries,  any  at-
tempt to answer that question may require evidence, expert
testimony, and further litigation.

We appreciate these concerns, but they do not persuade 
us.  Most fundamentally, they are irrelevant.  It is not our 
place to question whether Congress adopted the wisest or 
most workable policy, only to discern and apply the policy
it  did  adopt.  If  Texas  thinks  good  governance  requires  a
different set of rules, its appeals are better directed to those
who make the laws than those charged with following them. 
Even on its own terms, we are not sure what to make of 
Texas’s policy argument.  We do not doubt that the Resto-
ration Act’s prohibitory/regulatory distinction can and will
generate borderline cases.  See F. Cohen, Handbook of Fed-
eral Indian Law 541–544 (N. Newton ed. 2012).  It may even 
be that electronic bingo will prove such a case.  But if ap-
plying the Act’s terms poses challenges, that hardly makes 
it unique among federal statutes.  Nor is the line the Resto-
ration Act asks us to enforce quite as unusual as Texas sug-
gests.  Courts have applied the same prohibitory/regulatory 
framework elsewhere in this country under Public Law 280 
for decades.  See id., at 541–547.  IGRA, too, draws a similar 
line to assess the propriety of class II gaming on Indian res-
ervations nationwide.  See 25 U. S. C. § 2710(b)(1)(A); see
also  K.  Washburn,  Federal  Law,  State  Policy,  and  Indian 
Gaming, 4  Nev. L. J. 285, 289–290 (2004).  In fact, Texas