[1] In addition, Congress provided a one-year window of opportunity from the effective date of PASPA (January 1, 1993) for states which operated licensed casino gaming for the previous ten-year period to pass laws permitting sports wagering.

In a May 2018 decision in Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that PASPA conflicts with the Tenth Amendment.

David Stern, the then-commissioner for the National Basketball Association, testified that "The interstate ramifications of sports betting are a compelling reason for federal legislation."

In light of these findings, Congress exercised its authority under the Commerce Clause to enact the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) in 1992, codified at 28 U.S.C.

[4] Proponents of repeal typically asserted that the law as written was inherently unconstitutional, as the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution reserves to the states all rights not explicitly granted to the federal government—such as gambling regulation.

While the primarily legal challenge to the law came from New Jersey, other efforts to overturn it had been set in motion before the Supreme Court's decision in May 2018; this included a sports-betting bill being introduced in Kentucky,[5] as well as the other states who were in the process of creating and or passing some form of sports betting legislation and the formation of the pro-repeal American Sports Betting Coalition, a lobby alliance which included the American Gaming Association and the National Indian Gaming Association.

[15] New Jersey appealed this case to the United States Supreme Court, requesting examination of PASPA under the anti-commandeering provisions of the Tenth Amendment.

The case was combined with a separate petition NJ Thoroughbred Horsemen v. NCAA, representing commercial interests related to PASPA.