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10 

YSLETA DEL SUR PUEBLO v. TEXAS 

Opinion of the Court 

allows the game subject to fixed rules about the time, place,
and  manner  in  which  it  may  be  conducted.  See  Brief  for 
Respondent 5.  From this alone, it would seem to follow that 
Texas’s laws fall on the regulatory rather than prohibitory
side of the line—and thus may not be applied on tribal lands
under the terms of subsection (b). 

To be sure, Texas is not without a reply.  It observes that 
in everyday speech someone could describe its laws as “pro-
hibiting” bingo unless the State’s time, place, and manner 
regulations are followed.  After all, conducting bingo or any 
other game in defiance of state regulations can lead not just 
to a civil citation, but to a criminal prosecution too.  See Tex. 
Occ.  Code  Ann.  §  2001.551(c)  (West  2019).    In  this  sense, 
the State submits, it seeks to do exactly what subsection (a)
allows—“prohibit” bingo that is not conducted for charitable
purposes  and  compliant  with  all  its  state  gaming  regula-
tions. 

That much we find hard to see.  Maybe in isolation or in
another  context,  Texas’s  understanding  of  the  word  “pro-
hibit” would make sense.  But here it risks rendering the 
Restoration  Act  a  jumble.    No  one  questions  that  Texas 
“regulates” bingo by fixing the time, place, and manner in
which the game may be conducted.  The State submits only 
that,  in  some  sense,  its  laws  also  “prohibit”  bingo—when 
the game fails to comply with the State’s time, place, and 
manner regulations.  But on that reading, the law’s dichot-
omy  between  prohibition  and  regulation  collapses.    Laws 
regulating gaming activities become laws prohibiting gam-
ing activities.  It’s an interpretation that violates our usual 
rule  against  “ascribing  to  one  word  a  meaning  so  broad”
that  it  assumes  the  same  meaning  as  another  statutory 
term.  Gustafson v. Alloyd Co., 513 U. S. 561, 575 (1995).
It’s a view that defies our usual presumption that “differ-
ences in language like this convey differences in meaning.” 
Henson v. Santander Consumer USA Inc., 582 U. S. ___, ___ 
(2017)  (slip  op.,  at  6).    And  perhaps  most  tellingly,  it  is  a