Congress isn’t shy when it comes to setting a clear federal policy on the divisive subject of sports gambling. In every instance, it has done so explicitly – starting with the Wire Act of 1961, which prohibits the interstate transmission of wagering information related to any “sporting event of contest” (a ban which is still in effect), and further exemplified by the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992, which, until its demise in 2018, prohibited state-authorized sports wagering. The Third Circuit referred to these laws as exemplifying a “federal policy of disfavoring sports-gambling.”
Sports gambling is also specifically addressed in a number of other federal statutes, including the Sports Bribery Act, the Wagering Paraphernalia Act, and the Federal Wagering Tax Act.
