Interstate Sports Betting? Betting on sporting events across state lines? The Supreme Court’s sports betting decision in Murphy v. NCAA dramatically altered the landscape for sports betting in the United States by declaring that the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) is unconstitutional. As a result of this decision, States are now free to legalize sports betting without any federal interference.

With the demise of PASPA, the Wire Act looms as the most important federal law affecting the future of sports betting. In short, the Wire Act prohibits any person or entity engaged in the business of sports betting from using “wire communication facilities” to “transmit” bets or wagers on sporting events — or even “information” relating to bets or wagers — through “interstate commerce,” which generally (but not always) means across state lines.

Even with the Supreme Court’s invalidation of PASPA, the Wire Act would still stand as a formidable legal obstacle for Interstate sports betting, even in those situations where both of the States at issue had legalized sports betting. This is because the Wire Act criminalizes the interstate transmission of all bets and wagers on sporting events, regardless of whether such betting is legal in a particular state.

The Supreme Court’s brief discussion of the Wire Act may have turned that thinking on its head. At page 28 of the Murphy opinion, the Supreme Court compared PASPA to several other federal anti-gambling laws and observed that such federal laws “respect the policy choices of the people of each State on the controversial issue of gambling.”

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