Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-476_dbfi.pdf
Page Number: 15.0

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

11 

Opinion of the Court 

bition  on  all  lotteries,  it  could  maintain  the  law,  it 
could repeal the law, it could downgrade the crime to 
a misdemeanor or increase the penalty . . . .  But if the 
state modified its law, whether through a new author­
ization  or  through  an  amendment  partially  repealing 
the existing prohibition, to authorize the state to con­
duct  a  sports  lottery,  that  modified  law  would  be 
preempted.”  Id., at 31. 

The United States makes a similar argument.  PASPA, 
it  contends,  does  not  prohibit  a  State  from  enacting  a 
complete  repeal  because  “one  would  not  ordinarily  say 
that private conduct is ‘authorized by law’ simply because 
the  government  has  not  prohibited  it.”  Brief  for  United 
States  17.  But  the  United  States  claims  that  “[t]he  2014
Act’s  selective  and  conditional  permission  to  engage  in 
conduct that is generally prohibited certainly qualifies” as
an authorization.  Ibid.  The United States does not argue
that PASPA outlaws all partial repeals, but it does not set 
out  any  clear  rule  for  distinguishing  between  partial  re­
peals  that  constitute  the  “authorization”  of  sports  gam­
bling  and  those  that  are  permissible.    The  most  that  it  is 
willing  to  say  is  that  a  State  could  “eliminat[e]  prohibi­
tions  on  sports  gambling  involving  wagers  by  adults  or
wagers below a certain dollar threshold.”  Id., at 29. 

B 
In our view, petitioners’ interpretation is correct: When
a  State  completely  or  partially  repeals  old  laws  banning 
sports  gambling,  it  “authorize[s]”  that  activity.    This  is 
clear when the state-law landscape at the time of PASPA’s
enactment is taken into account.  At that time, all forms of 
sports  gambling  were  illegal  in  the  great  majority  of
States,  and  in  that  context,  the  competing  definitions 
offered  by  the  parties  lead  to  the  same  conclusion.    The 
repeal  of  a  state  law  banning  sports  gambling  not  only 
“permits” sports gambling (petitioners’ favored definition);