Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-493_jgko.pdf
Page Number: 25

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

1 

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

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No. 20–493 
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YSLETA DEL SUR PUEBLO, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. 
TEXAS 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 
APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT 

[June 15, 2022] 

CHIEF  JUSTICE  ROBERTS,  with  whom  JUSTICE  THOMAS, 

JUSTICE ALITO, and JUSTICE KAVANAUGH join, dissenting. 

In order to obtain federal trust status, the Ysleta del Sur 
Pueblo Tribe agreed that Texas’s gambling laws should ap-
ply on its reservation.  Congress passed a bill codifying this 
arrangement.  The  key  statutory  provision  states,  “[a]ll 
gaming  activities  which  are  prohibited  by  the  laws  of  the
State of Texas are hereby prohibited on the reservation and 
on lands of the tribe.”  Ysleta del Sur Pueblo and Alabama 
and  Coushatta  Indian  Tribes  of  Texas  Restoration  Act, 
§107(a),  101  Stat.  668  (Restoration  Act).    The  Tribe  now 
wishes to engage in various high-stakes gaming activities
that would clearly violate Texas law—if Texas law applies. 
The question presented in this case is whether all of Texas’s 
gaming laws apply on tribal land, or only those laws that 
categorically ban a particular game. 

The Court today concludes that the latter reading of the
statute  is  the  better  one.  I  disagree.    A  straightforward 
reading  of  the  statute’s  text  makes  clear  that  all  gaming
activities prohibited in Texas are also barred on the Tribe’s 
land.  The Court’s  contrary interpretation is at odds with
the statute’s plain meaning, conflicts with an unambiguous
tribal  resolution  that  the  Act  was  “enacted  in  accordance 
with,”  id.,  at  668–669,  and  makes  a  hash  of  the  statute’s 
structure.    The  Court’s  approach  also  winds  up  treating