Case 1:25-cv-08846-AT Document 60-1 Filed 12/03/25 Page 23 of 31
Finally, even if there were a conflict (there is not), the CEA’s silence as to class III gaming on Indian lands and its effect on IGRA means it is, at most, ambiguous as to whether the CEA repealed IGRA. That ambiguity must be resolved in tribes’ favor under the Indian canons of construction. 3. Congress did not nullify PASPA and preempt the state sports betting prohibitions on which it relied to effectuate federal policy when it amended the CEA in 2010 Kalshi must show that by amending the definition section of the CEA in 2010, Congress swept aside a federal statute (the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (“PASPA”)) that broadly prohibited sports betting based on then-existing state laws—state laws that, under Kalshi’s theory, were preempted. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 3702, 3704(a). In other words, according to Kalshi, Congress (silently and by implication) nullified the strong policy in PASPA against sports betting, and preempted the means Congress chose to effectuate that policy. And, under Kalshi’s theory, Congress did that without acknowledging it had effected such an extensive repeal or conferring on the CFTC any specific powers to prevent addiction and corruption deemed essential by every state that now allows sports betting. 11 It would make no difference if Kalshi were correct that its preemption argument is limited to sports betting actually conducted on a DCM (which it is not); that would still mean that Congress authorized the very activity that it had required states to prohibit, without even setting any standards to regulate such activity (sports betting). That is not credible. Whether Congress overturned a federal policy against sports betting and displaced state regulatory authority with billions of dollars and significant risks of corruption and addiction due
11 Kalshi touts the regulatory standards for DCMs. Pl. Mot. for Prelim. Inj. at 7 (ECF No. 16). But those standards have nothing to do with gambling addiction or sports corruption.
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