Opinion ID: 3010281
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Affects Commerce

Text: It is beyond dispute that state lotteries affect interstate commerce. In the Lottery Case, 188 U.S. 321, 354 (1903), the Supreme Court held that lottery tickets are subjects of traffic and therefore are subjects of commerce, and the regulation of the carriage of such tickets from State to State . . . is a regulation of commerce among the several states. Although Pic-A-State does not transport actual lottery tickets across state lines, but only sells interests in lottery tickets via computer, its activities may still be regulated by Congress. The power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce extends not only to the exchange and transportation of commodities, or visible, tangible things, but the carriage of persons and the transmission by telegraph of ideas, wishes, orders, and intelligence. Id. at 351-52. Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce also reaches the transmission of information by computer for the purpose of purchasing lottery tickets. Moreover, Pic-A-State itself notes that national lottery sales exceeded $30 billion in 1993. Brief of the Appellants at 20 n.5. A business of such enormous economic impact is a proper subject for congressional regulation under the Commerce Clause. 15