betting in cricket supreme courtSupreme Court rules for sports betting
The Supreme Court started the process of releasing significant decisions from its current term on Monday, with a much-anticipated ruling on sports betting taking center stage.
In a 7-2 majority decision, Justice Samuel Alito struck down a 1992 federal law that regulated sports betting on a state level as the Court’s majority took a strong stance on the 10th Amendment and states’ powers.
In the Murphy v. NCAA case, a federal appeals court in 2013 had said New Jersey couldn’t legalize sports betting because it missed a filing deadline required in that 1992 federal law, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (or PASPA). The statute had allowed Nevada and several other states to have sports betting, but New Jersey decided not to apply for permission to do so. Instead, decades later it enacted its own law to control sports betting. The Supreme Court didn’t take an appeal from the state in 2014 and New Jersey then tried a different strategy in court.
The Justices were considering if PASPA violated the 10th Amendment’s anti-commandeering provisions, which limit the ability of the federal government to take over or “commandeer” state officials or a state law.
“The PASPA provision at issue here—prohibiting state authorization of sports gambling—violates the anti-commandeering rule,” Alito said. “PASPA’s provision prohibiting state “licens[ing]” of sports gambling schemes also violates the anti-commandeering rule.”
Alito made it clear the law’s effect regulated the activities of state lawmakers. “In either event, state legislatures are put under the direct control of Congress. It is as if federal officers were installed in state legislative chambers and were armed with the authority to stop legislators from voting on any offending proposals. A more direct affront to state sovereignty is not easy to imagine,” he wrote.
Alito also said Congress could regulate sports gambling under certain circumstances but by not using PASPA.
“Congress can regulate sports gambling directly, but if it elects not to do so, each State is free to act on its own. Our job is to interpret the law Congress has enacted and decide whether it is consistent with the Constitution. PASPA is not. PASPA “regulate[s] state governments’ regulation” of their citizens. … . The Constitution gives Congress no such power.”
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, dissented from the decision, and they were joined by Justice Stephen Breyer in part of the dissent. Ginsburg argued that the parts of PASPA that were unconstitutional could be severed from the law, leaving the rest of the statute intact.
“In PASPA, shorn of the prohibition on modifying or repealing state law, Congress permissibly exercised its authority to regulate commerce by instructing States and private parties to refrain from operating sports-gambling schemes,” Ginsburg said. “Deleting the alleged “commandeering” directions would free the statute to accomplish just what Congress legitimately sought to achieve: stopping sports gambling regimes while making it clear that the stoppage is attributable to federal, not state, action.”
Today’s ruling could have a significant impact on the sports betting industry. One industry research firm forecast legalized sports gambling could expand to at least 32 states if the Court struck down PASPA.
Scott Bomboy is editor in chief of the National Constitution Center.
betting in cricket supreme courtSupreme Court rules in favour of cricket and its fans
The Supreme Court on Monday ruled in favour of cricket and the game’s millions of viewers by upholding almost all of former Chief Justice of India RM Lodha Committee’s recommendations to overhaul Indian cricket administration at the end of a long-inning spanning over two years during which the high priests of BCCI and State associations fought tooth-and-nail to protect their spell over the sport’s running in the country.
In language gently chiding the cricket administrators for their belligerent stance in the court against “change”, a Bench of Chief Justice of India TS Thakur and Justice FMI Kalifulla, who is retiring this week, advised them to let go of their “ego” to help usher in long-needed reform into the cash-rich sport for the sake of the spirit of the game.
“The truth is that resistance to change stems partly from people getting used to status quo and partly because any change is perceived to affect their vested interest in terms of loss of ego, status, power or resources. This is true particularly when the suggested change is structural or organisational that involves some threat, real or perceived, of personal loss to those involved,” Chief Justice Thakur wrote in the 143-page judgment for the Bench.
Uncannily reading the minds of those opposing the Lodha panel recommendations submitted on December 18, 2015, for the court to stamp its authority, the Supreme Court said the sense of justice and fairness personified by Justice Lodha’s work seemed to have “made little or no difference” to those resisting the committee’s conclusions and suggestions.
The apex court found no reason to interfere with the recommendations that effectively overhaul the BCCI’s organisational set-up, memberships and functioning for the sake of transparency and accountability.
Chiefly, it gave full marks to Lodha panel restrictions like ‘One State, One Vote’ or capping an age limit for cricket administrators at 70 or keeping government ministers and bureaucrats out or including a nominee of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) office or a three-year term with a cooling-off period between two successive terms and even the grounds of disqualification, which includes renouncing of position as soon as an office-bearer becomes a government minister.
The judgment cursorily dismisses the BCCI and State Associations’ rejection of Lodha panel recommendation that office-bearers should not enjoy “dual positions” simultaneously on the Board and in State cricket bodies.
The judgment gives the green signal to the panel’s recommendation for overhaul of the existing Committees of the BCCI on the ground that they do not have clearly defined terms of reference.
“The BCCI ought to adopt an approach that would institutionalise the management of its administrative affairs rather than such affairs being run on an ad-hoc basis,” the court agreed.
Supervising the transition It hands over the job of supervising the transition to the Lodha Committee, saying “we hope that the same should be completed within a period of four months or at best six months from today”.
The court asked the panel to draw the timelines for completing the transition while directing the BCCI to approach the Supreme Court, and only the Supreme Court, in case of any further directions are required.
The court agreed that the ‘One State, One Vote’ policy may affect budding cricketers in States having more then one member cricket clubs as in Maharashtra and Gujarat with a long-standing history in contributing to cricket.
To avoid “long drawn litigation and frustration for the players and cricket lovers”, the court suggested that the only way out of the “conundrum” is to introduce a policy of rotation of full membership among the clubs on an annual basis.
“During the period one of the associations would exercise rights and privileges of a full member, the other two associations would act as associate members of BCCI. This rotational arrangement would give each member a right to vote at its turn without violating the broader principle of one State one vote recommended by the Committee,” the court reasoned. Though the court restrains from passing any directions to include BCCI under the ambit of the Right to Information Act, it refers the question to the Law Commission of India to consider the suggestion from the Lodha panel.
On betting Similarly, the court refrains from pronouncing on the panel’s recommendation to legalise betting in the aftermath of the Indian Premier League (IPL) betting scandal that dragged Indian cricket into the mud and triggered the litigation initiated by the Cricket Association of Bihar. Instead, it points out that the question of legalising betting “involves the enactment of a law”.
This again, it refers to the Law Commission and the Centre for action.
Broadcast of matches The court also refused to intervene in BCCI’s complaint that the committee’s recommendation for uninterrupted broadcast of matches through reduced advertisements would have a crippling effect on the financial health of the Board.
Instead of taking sides, the court refers the Committee’s recommendation to the BCCI to find an appropriate solution keeping in mind the spirit behind the suggestion.
Again, the court stops short of passing an order on BCCI’s objection to including representatives of IPL franchisees in the IPL Governing Council.
The Board maintains that this would lead to conflict of interest as the Council decides on players’ retention policy and umpire selection.
Instead, the court refers the recommendation back to the Lodha Committee for a re-look and assures that if the panel reiterates the recommendation it would be deemed that it has received the court’s assent.
Article 19 (1) (c) Chief Justice Thakur rips apart the BCCI argument that it is a private body protected under Article 19 (1) (c) of the Constitution (the fundamental right to form unions or associations or co-operative societies). BCCI argued that no court has the power to regulate or breach this freedom.
The court’s answer is a deft mixture of logic and law. It points out that freedom under Article 19 (1) (c) is guaranteed only to “citizens and citizens alone”.
“Recourse to Article 19(1) (c) is not, therefore, open to juristic or other persons and entities who are non-citizens,” the apex court responds.
Besides, what the court does here is to usher in reform to inspire public confidence in the Board and the game, it adds.
The Lodha panel was not given the job of making “cosmetic changes” but lay the proper foundations for cricket to prosper and reach the masses in an unadulterated form.
“BCCI was discharging public functions and is, therefore, subject to the rigours of ‘Public Law’ making it mandatory for the BCCI to adhere to the principles of reasonableness, fairness, accountability and transparency,” the apex court held.
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betting in cricket supreme courtSupreme Court Rules States Are Free To Legalize Sports Betting betting in cricket supreme courtSupreme Court Rules States Are Free To Legalize Sports Betting
Updated 2:22 p.m. ETThe Supreme Court has struck down a 1992 federal law that effectively prevented most states from legalizing sports betting, clearing up a legal gray area and opening a door for state governments to join in what has become a lucrative industry.”Congress can regulate sports gambling directly, but if it elects not to do so, each State is free to act on its own,” the court wrote in a decision released Monday.The law called the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, passed in 1992, prohibited sports betting, except in four states where it had already been legalized — Nevada, Delaware, Montana and Oregon. It gave the other states one year to legalize such betting, if they wanted to do so.Separately, the Supreme Court , dealing with personal rights. In Byrd v. US, the court with the driver of a rental car who said he had his privacy rights violated by police during a traffic stop in Pennsylvania. And in McCoy v. LA, the court , in favor of a defendant whose lawyer conceded his guilt to the jury disregarding the explicit instructions of his client.Potential impact of the court’s rulingThe ban on legalizing sports betting is also known as the Bradley Act, after its chief promoter, former basketball great Bill Bradley, who served three terms in the U.S. Senate., Bradley said his motivation was simple, and personal. “Betting on sports was betting on human beings, and I thought that was wrong,” he explained. “It turns players into roulette chips. It makes the game, which is a game of high-level competition and excellence, into slot machines, and I don’t think that should be what we do in this country.”Bradley said there was virtually no congressional opposition to his bill back in 1992, though Bradley added that Donald Trump, with failing investments in Atlantic City casinos at the time, lobbied against it, believing that sports betting was the answer to his financial problems there.After the bill passed, New Jersey did not seek to legalize gambling in its one-year window of opportunity.More recently, it tried to get out of the ban, hoping for increased state revenue, but the state repeatedly lost in the lower court.The Supreme Court’s court decision reversing that outcome will make it easier to open the door to sports betting.But the status quo struck down by the Supreme Court looks almost quaint in light of increased pressure to legalize sports betting across the board.The American Gaming Association estimates that illegal sports betting has grown to $150-billion-a-year market. And cash-starved states are salivating at the thought of raising billions from legalizing and licensing that activity, not to mention taxing the proceeds.New Jersey, home to at least a half dozen shuttered Atlantic City casinos, is a state where Republicans and Democrats since 2011 have been trying to overturn the federal ban or somehow get around it.After oral arguments in December, then-Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., said on the Supreme Court steps, “If we’re successful here, we can have bets being taken in New Jersey within two weeks of a decision by the court. We’re like boy scouts; we’re prepared.”What the law did and didn’t doThe law does not itself ban sports betting. Instead it prevents states from legalizing sports betting.Lawyers for New Jersey argued that the law forces state governments to enforce a federal initiative, which the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled is unconstitutional.Lawyers for the sports leagues said that the federal law is not forcing states to do anything, but rather telling them what not to do, which wouldn’t violate the Constitution.As NPR reported after oral arguments in December, a majority of the justices appeared to have “serious doubts” about the constitutionality of the law.And on Monday, they put those doubts in writing.”Our job is to interpret the law Congress has enacted and decide whether it is consistent with the Constitution,” the court said in its decision. “PASPA is not.”America has seen a cultural shift on the question of sports gambling. NPR’s Uri Berliner reported in 2015 that ESPN has been increasing its coverage of gambling by, for instance, directly referencing the point spread set by oddsmakers.And while the major U.S. pro- and college-sports leagues have “always sought to distance themselves completely from gambling,” as Berliner put it, NBA Commission Adam Silver came out in favor of legalizing (and regulating) sports betting in 2014.Then there’s the popularity of daily fantasy sports — an industry that has weathered Fantasy sports leagues amount to “thinly veiled gambling,” as ESPN’s Rob King told Berliner, and have helped push sports betting into the mainstream.Meanwhile, the sports betting decision could have implications for a wide range of other state laws — including those legalizing marijuana, Nina noted. Amy Howe, , suggests state laws decriminalizing physician-assisted suicide and self-driving cars could also be affected. Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.