[8] New Jersey voters in 2011 voted overwhelmingly in a nonbinding referendum to create a state constitutional amendment, which would permit sports gambling.

[10] In August 2012, the NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB, and NCAA sued under PASPA to enjoin the New Jersey law; they were later joined by the United States Department of Justice; the case was colloquially known as Christie I.

[11] In February 2013, Judge Michael A. Shipp of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey rejected the state's argument, and ruled for the leagues by finding that there was "an undisputed direct link between legalized gambling and harm to the Leagues" and granting an injunction against New Jersey from enforcing the 2012 law.

[13] The Third Circuit opinion noted the distinction between "affirmative authorizations" specifically prevented in PASPA, and the act of repealing the state's law.

[12] Based on the repealing language from the Third Circuit's decision on Christie I, New Jersey State Senator Raymond Lesniak revised the 2012 law with the approval of the Justice Department.

[11] While it passed the New Jersey Legislature, Governor Christie vetoed it since he believed that it was an attempt to bypass the Third Circuit's ruling.

In both courts, the judges saw the act of repealing only portions of previous state laws as equivalent to affirmative authorizations, which still violated PASPA.

"[16] Encouraged by the language in the dissenting opinions from the Third Circuit on Christie II, New Jersey petitioned for a writ of certiorari from the Supreme Court in October 2016.

While it filed their petition separately to reflect the commercial impact of the situation, its question to the Supreme Court was the same of whether PASPA commandeered power from the states.

It was a matter of happenstance that the laws challenged in New York and Printz commanded "affirmative" action as opposed to imposing a prohibition.

"[30] The court rejected the respondents' argument that the anti-authorization provision was a valid preemption of state law under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S.

[31] The Supremacy Clause, the Court pointed out, "is not an independent grant of legislative power to Congress" but "[i]nstead, it simply provides a rule of decision.

"[32] For a federal provision to validly preempt state law, "it must represent the exercise of a power conferred on Congress by the Constitution[,] pointing to the Supremacy Clause will not do",[32] and "since the Constitution confers upon Congress the power to regulate individuals, not States, [the] provision at issue must be best read as one that regulates private actors.

"[32] The court illustrated express preemption with Morales v. Trans World Airlines[35] concerning a provision of the Airline Deregulation Act that used language that seemed directed to the states and similar to the issue in Murphy: [T]o ensure that the States would not undo federal deregulation with regulation of their own, the Act provided that 'no State or political subdivision thereof ... shall enact or enforce any law, rule, regulation, standard, or other provision having the force and effect of law relating to rates, routes, or services of any [covered] air carrier.'

If a private citizen or company started a sports gambling operation, either with or without state authorization, §3702(1) would not be violated and would not provide any ground for a civil action by the Attorney General or any other party.

[40]A question posed by the majority opinion was over the current severability doctrine employed by the Supreme Court at the time of this decision.

Alito and the five other justices that joined his opinion, excluding Breyer, believed that §§ 3701(1) was unseverable from the remaining language of PASPA and declared the law unconstitutional.

[29] The oral arguments in the case were considered to have gone favorably towards New Jersey and against the leagues, and many commentators believed that the Supreme Court would find that PASPA was unconstitutional.

[50] With the Court finding in favor of New Jersey, observers believe its ruling will impact other current federal laws in place that could be considered to have commandeered power from the states and other challenges related to the Tenth Amendment, such as gun ownership rights, immigration enforcement (such as penalizing sanctuary cities), and the legalization of marijuana under state law.