## Facts

- The New Hampshire Lottery Commission operated lottery products, including multi-state games that use interstate wire communications for sales, data transmission, and settlement.
- A lottery vendor (NeoPollard Interactive LLC and Pollard Banknote Limited) joined in a consolidated action because its services depended on the Commission’s continued operations.
- The federal Wire Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1084(a), prohibits certain interstate wire transmissions connected to “bets or wagers” and related information.
- In 2011, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) interpreted § 1084(a) as limited to sports gambling.
- In 2018, OLC reversed course, interpreting § 1084(a) to reach some non-sports gambling, and DOJ directed federal prosecutors to follow that interpretation after a grace period.
- The Commission alleged the 2018 interpretation created a credible threat of prosecution and would force operational changes that could eliminate roughly $90 million annually in education revenue.
- Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief to prevent enforcement of the 2018 interpretation against their lottery-related activities.

## Issues

1. Whether plaintiffs had Article III standing and whether the dispute was ripe where DOJ had not yet brought an enforcement action but had announced an interpretation and implementation policy.
2. Whether 18 U.S.C. § 1084(a) is limited to transmissions related to bets or wagers “on any sporting event or contest,” or also criminalizes non-sports gambling such as state lotteries.
3. Whether, and to what extent, the 2018 OLC opinion warranted administrative-law deference in construing the Wire Act.

## Decision

- The court denied the government’s motion to dismiss for lack of standing and related jurisdictional objections.
- The court granted summary judgment for the plaintiffs on statutory interpretation.
- The court declared that § 1084(a) applies only to bets or wagers on sporting events or contests, excluding state lottery operations from the Wire Act’s reach.
- The court rejected the 2018 OLC interpretation as contrary to the statute and unpersuasive.

## Legal Principles

- Plaintiffs may establish standing and ripeness by showing a substantial risk of enforcement and present economic hardship when an announced federal interpretation is treated as controlling within the Executive Branch and is paired with an implementation directive.
- In construing § 1084(a), the phrase “on any sporting event or contest” is best read to qualify the relevant categories of “bets or wagers” transmissions described in the statute, limiting the provision to sports gambling.
- Statutory text is interpreted in light of sentence structure, surrounding provisions, and contemporaneous statutory context; evidence that Congress targeted sports bookmaking supports a sports-only reading.
- OLC interpretive opinions do not carry the force of law and are not entitled to Chevron deference; at most they receive weight proportional to their persuasive power.

## Conclusion

The district court held that the Wire Act’s interstate wire prohibitions in 18 U.S.C. § 1084(a) are confined to sports betting, found a ripe and justiciable controversy based on DOJ’s announced enforcement position, and entered declaratory relief protecting state lottery operations from the 2018 DOJ interpretation.


N.H. Lottery Comm'n v. Barr, 386 F. Supp. 3d 132 (D.N.H. 2019)