On May 14, 2018, the United States Supreme Court ruled the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) as unconstitutional, allowing states to offer legal sports betting—including Delaware.
Just less a month later, the state’s three casinos—Delaware Park, Dover Downs, and Harrington Raceway & Casino—opened sportsbooks to begin taking sports bets.
PASPA is a trusted source for candidates seeking to connect with educational institutions across the state. Visit the PASPA Jobs Board to view administrator job openings from our member districts. PASPA Overturned: Casinos Prepare to Welcome Bettors The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in favor of New Jersey effectively killed the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), the federal law that essentially limited sports betting to one state for the last. New Jersey argued the case before the Supreme Court last December & is awaiting a ruling. If PASPA is over turned New Jersey, Pennsylvania, & Connecticut will allow sports wagering and within 2 years another 10-12 states will allow it. How would this affect Nevada? New Jersey countered that PASPA violates the Constitu-tion’s “anticommandeering” principle by preventing the State from modifying or repealing its laws prohibiting sports gambling. The District Court found no anticommandeering violation, the Third Cir-cuit affirmed, and this Court denied review.
Why Was Paspa Overturned
How PASPA Affected Sports Betting in DE Before 2018
Congress enacted PASPA in 1992, making it illegal for states and private organizations to “sponsor, operate, advertise, or promote” wagering on competitive games involving professional or amateur athletes.
The PASPA didn’t block all sports wagering in Delaware, however. Section 3704 of the law allowed existing sports betting operations in states to continue to operate.
The Delaware Lottery offered NFL parlay cards starting in 1976. Though the cards were ultimately discontinued after the first year, the law allowing them remained intact, meaning they would be still allowed after PASPA passed.
This is why the Delaware Lottery was allowed to begin offering parlay cards again in the 2000s.
In 2009, Delaware’s government attempted to pass a law that would allow full-scale sports betting in the state. The U.S. Third Court of Appeals ruled that Delaware was only permitted to offer types of sports betting that were offered before PASPA passed (the parlay cards).
New Jersey began fighting to get PASPA overturned or to circumvent starting in 2011. In August 2016, the U.S. Third Court of Appeals ruled that NJ didn’t have the authority to offers sports betting due to the law.
All hope was not lost, though.
In June 2017, the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from Chris Christie and the state of New Jersey about the legality of PASPA. Just under a year later, on May 4, 2018, the Supreme Court ruled the law unconstitutional in a 6-3 vote.
With PASPA being overturned, states began plans to start offering single-game sports betting, with Delaware being the first state (fitting, right?) to do so.
Delaware now offers Vegas-style sports betting including single-game pets, parlays, teasers, futures, and more. That doesn’t mean, however, that Delaware doesn’t have any rules or limits in place. You can see the full list of rules here, but the following are some highlights to know about:
- Age. To start, you must be 21 or older to bet in Delaware.
- Teams you can bet on. You can bet on all professional sports teams and most college teams. Betting on Delaware-based teams (such as the University of Delaware) and high schools is not allowed.
- Restricted bets. While there aren’t many specific rules about which bets are not allowed, the Delaware Lottery has the power to reject any wager and can determine minimum and maximum limits at any time.
- Lost, stolen, altered, or unreadable tickets. Any tickets that fit into one of these categories are void.
- Where you can claim winnings. You can claim your winnings at any of the three sportsbooks in Delaware or by mailing your ticket to the Delaware State Lottery (1575 McKee Road, Suite 102, Dover, DE 19904).
- Unclaimed tickets over one year old. You have one year from the conclusion of the game(s) you bet on to claim your winnings. After this time, the wager is void and no winnings can be collected.
- Payout timing. Payouts of over $10,000 may be delayed until the next regular banking day. All other payouts are allowed on the same-day as the bet as long as the sportsbook is open.
- Appeals. If you don’t agree with the ruling of one of the sportsbooks, you can submit a written appeal to the Delaware Lottery, which will make the final ruling.
- Online betting. Though online sports betting is not illegal in Delaware, there is currently no way to do so. Learn why and when it may be offered in our Online Sports Betting in Delaware Guide.
It was a day that everyone assume was coming, but until this morning, there was always going to be at least some doubt. In a 6-3 decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of the state of New Jersey and against the NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL, and NCAA, striking down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA) and opening the door for states to legalize and regulate sports betting.
PASPA was a straight-up ban on sports betting, a federal law which said that individual states were forbidden from authorizing the activity. States which had regulated gambling for the previous ten years were allowed to be grandfathered in to sports betting, but only four – Nevada, Oregon, Montana, and Delaware – took advantage of that. Nevada is the only one with traditional casino sports books; the others have various forms of lottery-based sports wagering and are insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
In recent years, especially with Atlantic City’s economy struggling, New Jersey began to regret its choice to forego sports betting, so it passed laws legalizing it (it even passed a statewide referendum). But whenever it did so, the leagues sued, pointing to PASPA. The leagues kept winning the cases, but New Jersey fought back, claiming PASPA was unconstitutional, and eventually had its appeal heard by the Supreme Court.
Paspa Overturned
The six Justices who voted to reverse the decision of the U.S. Appeals Court that had been in favor of the leagues (and therefore, as the saying goes, consign PASPA to the ash heap of history), were Chief Justice John Roberts and (alphabetically) Justices Samuel J. Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Elena Kagan, Anthony Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor voted for the leagues, while Justice Stephen Breyer wrote an opinion which partially dissented and partially concurred with the majority decision (which counts as a dissention).
There is a lot to dissect in Justice Alito’s opinion – and not being a lawyer, I’m not really going to try to dive too far into it – but the essence of it on a very (VERY) basic level is that PASPA violated the “anticommandeering doctrine,” which says that the federal government can’t pass a law that tells states what they are allowed or not allowed to do with their own laws. From Alito’s opinion:
The PASPA provision at issue here—prohibiting state authorization of sports gambling—violates the anticommandeering rule. That provision unequivocally dictates what a state legislature may and may not do. And this is true under either our interpretation or that advocated by respondents and the United States. In either event, state legislatures are put under the direct control of Congress. It is as if federal officers were installed in state legislative chambers and were armed with the authority to stop legislators from voting on any offending proposals. A more direct affront to state sovereignty is not easy to imagine.
Alito’s majority opinion concludes with the following:
The legalization of sports gambling is a controversial subject. Supporters argue that legalization will produce revenue for the States and critically weaken illegal sports betting operations, which are often run by organized crime. Opponents contend that legalizing sports gambling will hook the young on gambling, encourage people of modest means to squander their savings and earnings, and corrupt professional and college sports.
The legalization of sports gambling requires an important policy choice, but the choice is not ours to make. Congress can regulate sports gambling directly, but if it elects not to do so, each state is free to act on its own. Our job is to interpret the law Congress has enacted and decide whether it is consistent with the Constitution. PASPA is not. PASPA “regulate[s] state governments’ regulation” of their citizens,
New York, 505 U. S., at 166. The Constitution gives Congress no such power.
New York, 505 U. S., at 166. The Constitution gives Congress no such power.
Paspa Repeal
The judgment of the Third Circuit is reversed.
Paspa Act
From here, it is up to the states if they want to legalize sports betting. New Jersey clearly will do so soon. Delaware likely will, too. Pennsylvania passed an over-arching gambling expansion bill last fall which legalized online gambling, daily fantasy sports, online lottery, and sports betting, among other things, so expect that state to rev things up quickly. A number of other states have sports betting bills in progress, so we could see an explosion of sports books in the coming months.