A Jan. 6 ruling by a Michigan federal district court granted summary judgment and a permanent injunction in favor of TwinSpires against the Michigan Gaming Control Board's effort to stop the wagering platform from taking bets made by state residents on out-of-state horse races.
The ruling is consistent with a preliminary injunction entered against the MGCB by the same court last February that was affirmed in December by the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
READ: Federal Appeals Court Sides With TwinSpires in ADW Case
"This case is about Michigan’s ability to regulate betting on horse races. (TwinSpires) challenges a licensing requirement in the Michigan Horse Racing Law ..." wrote Judge Hala Y. Jarbou in the summary judgment opinion. "Twinspires contends that the licensing requirement is unenforceable because it is preempted by the federal Interstate Horseracing Act."
According to Jarbou, the Michigan law requires what she described as a "facilitator of bets" obtain a license from the state in which the bets are placed. However, according to Jarbou's opinion, the Interstate Horseracing Act only requires consent from “the host racing association (which conducts the horserace), the host racing commission (the regulator in the horseracing state), and the offtrack racing commission (the regulator in the state where the wager is accepted).”
Acknowledging the Sixth Circuit holding that Michigan's licensing requirement conflicts with the methods chosen by Congress to achieve the IHA’s objectives and "targets the federal scheme by bolting on an additional consent for wager acceptances," Jarbou ruled TwinSpires is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
The ruling, in effect, overturns MGCB's suspension of TwinSpires’ license in Michigan because it was not in compliance with the Michigan Horse Racing Law provision that required it to partner with an in-state racetrack.
In turn, she granted a permanent injunction against enforcement of the Michigan law against TwinSpires.
"As to Twinspires’s request for a permanent injunction, the factors that the Court must consider essentially overlap with the preliminary injunction factors addressed by the Sixth Circuit," Jarbou wrote. "Twinspires 'is entitled to a permanent injunction [because] it can establish that it suffered a constitutional violation and will suffer continuing irreparable injury for which there is no adequate remedy at law.'"
"It is ordered that Michigan Gambling Control Board Executive Director Henry L. Williams and Attorney General for the State of Michigan Dana Nessel shall not enforce the Michigan Horse Racing Law licensing requirement," Jarbou wrote.
The MGCB has a right to appeal the summary judgment, but doing so would put the case back in the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals that ruled in favor of TwinSpires as to the preliminary injunction it was granted by Jarbou.
Jarbou is chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan.
