Case: 25-7504, 01/16/2026, DktEntry: 38.1, Page 12 of 47
additional enforcement powers and, for a time, freezing it in place. See id. at 950-954. At no point, however, has federal law been more permis- sive regarding sports wagering than state law. This section lays out that history in greater detail. A. Early State Prohibitions and the Federal Wire Act Although major college athletics arose in the late 19th century, and major professional sports leagues at the turn of the 20th century, every state barred sports wagering until Nevada legalized it in 1949. Marc Edelman, Regulating Sports Gambling in the Aftermath of Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, 26 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 313, 315-317 (2019). In the ensuing 40 years, only three other states followed Nevada’s lead—and only in very limited ways, such as through the es- tablishment of state-sponsored sports lotteries. Id. at 318; John T. Holden et al., Legalized Sports Wagering in America , 44 Cardozo L. Rev. 1383, 1391-1392 (2023). Federal law eventually supplemented state prohibitions by crimi- nalizing interstate attempts to circumvent state law. In 1961, for exam- ple, Congress adopted the Wire Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1084. The act, which remains in effect today, bars the use of “a wire communication facility”
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