PASPA — the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act — was a federal law that effectively banned single-game sports wagering across the United States, carving out exceptions only for states, chiefly Nevada, that already had legal sports betting frameworks in place before the law was enacted. For roughly 26 years, PASPA prevented every other state from authorizing, licensing, or operating any form of regulated sports wagering, which pushed millions of American bettors toward illegal bookmakers and offshore operators that offered zero consumer protection.
What exactly did PASPA prohibit?
The law barred state governments from sponsoring, operating, advertising, promoting, licensing, or authorizing a lottery, sweepstakes, or other betting scheme based on competitive sporting events. In practical terms, that meant a state legislature could pass a sports betting bill, and federal law would simply nullify it. Individual bettors were not the primary target — the law aimed at the state-level infrastructure that would make legal wagering possible. The result was a nationwide freeze on the regulated market, even as underground and offshore markets continued to serve tens of millions of American bettors without any licensing, dispute resolution, or responsible-gambling standards in place.
How did the Supreme Court strike PASPA down?
In May 2018, the Supreme Court ruled in Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association that PASPA violated the anti-commandeering doctrine of the Tenth Amendment — Congress cannot simply order states to keep certain activities illegal. The decision returned full authority to regulate sports wagering to each individual state, and the legal market that followed moved quickly. Today, legal online and retail sports wagering is available in 39 states plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, though 11 states remain holdouts where sports betting is not yet legal. Because there is no uniform federal framework replacing PASPA, each state sets its own rules, tax rates, licensed operators, and minimum-age requirements, which is why you should always confirm current law in your specific jurisdiction before placing a wager.
Why does PASPA's repeal still matter to bettors today?
Understanding PASPA matters because its legacy shapes the current patchwork of state laws you navigate every time you open a sportsbook app. Before 2018, a bettor in New Jersey had the same two options as a bettor in Texas: use a Nevada sportsbook in person, or hand money to an unlicensed bookmaker with no regulatory recourse. The repeal created the licensed, state-supervised market that now offers deposit protections, verified payouts, and self-exclusion programs. For a full picture of where legal wagering is available right now, see our Where Sports Betting Is Legal in 2026 — State-by-State Guide.
What risks remain for bettors who use offshore sites?
Even though legal options exist in most of the country, some bettors still gravitate toward offshore books — often because they operate in a state that has not yet regulated sports betting, or because offshore sites advertise aggressively. Those books operate entirely outside state consumer-protection frameworks, meaning there is no regulator to call if a withdrawal is denied, no insurance fund if the operator closes, and no verified age-verification process. Our detailed breakdown of Offshore Sportsbooks — Why Illegal Books Leave Bettors Unprotected walks through exactly what bettors give up when they use an unlicensed book.
How does PASPA fit into the broader sports betting glossary?
PASPA is one of those terms that appears constantly in legal and historical discussions of the US betting market, so knowing its definition helps you read regulatory news and state legislature coverage with much better context. If you are still building out your foundational knowledge, our Sports Betting Glossary — Every Picks Term You Need to Know covers everything from moneyline and vig to geolocation and parlays in plain language. And if you want to understand the mechanics of where your wager actually goes once you place it, our guide on What Is a Sportsbook — How Licensed US Books Accept and Pay Out Picks explains how a licensed operator processes bets from submission through settlement.
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