Abstract
Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey B. Wall—the Trump administration's top Supreme Court litigator—argued in favor of the federal sports betting ban in a May 2017 legal filing.
The 24‐page amicus curiae legal brief was filed in the Supreme‐Court‐pending New Jersey sports gambling case and represented the first on‐the‐record statement about sports wagering by President Trump's executive branch. By arguing in support of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA), Acting Solicitor General Wall aligned himself with the five sports organizations (NCAA, NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB) who have twice sued New Jersey Governor Chris Christie under PASPA over the Garden State's desire to offer Nevada‐style sports gambling.
The acting solicitor general's amicus brief—filed in response to the Supreme Court's January 2017 request—made two central arguments. First, the government attorneys told the court that § 3702(1) of PASPA “does not violate the Tenth Amendment because it neither compels States to regulate [sports gambling] according to federal standards nor requires State officials to administer federal law” (p. 10). PASPA's general ban on state‐authorized sports betting in § 3702(1) was described as “a permissible exercise of Congress's authority to regulate state activities and to preempt state laws that conflict with federal policy” (p. 10).
Second, the acting solicitor general cited “the paucity of PASPA litigation of any kind” (p. 22) as an additional reason for the U.S. Supreme Court to decline review of the New Jersey case. Relatedly, the brief cited the “limited practical consequences of the question presented” to explain why review of the case was unwarranted.
For these two reasons, the acting solicitor general recommended to the U.S. Supreme Court that the “petitions for writs of certiorari [filed by Governor Christie and the New Jersey Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association] should be denied” (p. 24). With no fewer than seven other states currently considering sports betting legislation, this new filing by the solicitor general's office represents the first, but probably not the last, statement by President Trump's lawyers on sports wagering.