Delaware Supreme Court Upholds New State Law Allowing Sports Betting
In Re: Request of the Governor For An Advisory Opinion, No. 150, 2009 ( Del., May 27, 2009), read opinion here. (Revised May 29, 2009 opinion here.)
The Delaware Code provides a procedure for the Governor of Delaware to request the Delaware Supreme Court to provide an opinion on the constitutionality of any law passed by the General Assembly. It is within the discretion of the justices to decide whether to answer the question presented.
In this decision, the Supreme Court agreed to answer the question of whether legislation allowing for sports betting in Delaware was in violation of the Delaware State Constitution. Short Answer: No violation. This 21-page opinion describes the background of the constitutional provisions involved as well as the details of the recently enacted statute that now allows for sports betting. Based on a prior experiment with sports betting in the 1970s, Delaware is one of 4 states that has been "grandfathered" by a federal statute that otherwise bans sports betting.
Although the details of the opinion are beyond the scope of this blog, the procedure for Delaware's High Court issuing an opinion at the request of the Governor is a quintessentially Delaware phenomenon, including the speed with which the decision was briefed, argued and decided. The blog Above The Law has an article about the case here, with a humorous video clip about Delaware and links to other articles about the decision.
