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The judges were originally expected to only rule on the NFL's request for a preliminary injunction to prevent Delaware from instituting the games with the start of the football season on September 1, however, to the surprise of all parties, following two hours of oral argument, the three judge panel told the attorneys that since it was evident that there was no dispute about the facts, they would be rendering their decision from the bench.  The left the courtroom, huddled for  forty minutes and returned to deliver their verdict, stunning as it was to the everyone involved.

Delaware has 14 days within which to ask the full Court of Appeals to consider the court.  The governor's office will be considering whether and to what extent to appeal - an appeal to the US Supreme Court is also a possibility.  I would be very surprised if an appeal is not filed as I think Delaware has a just as strong an argument here as does the NFL.  There is nothing in the stature itself which restricts the exemption to the gambling as it existed at the time, which Congress certainly could have done if that is what intended. I was not in the courtroom and don't know how the oral argument went, but if the lawyers thought they were arguing about a preliminary injunction and not the validity of the game itself, I'm sure that the Delaware lawyers, in particular, were taking their arguments down a different road than the one they would take if the validity of the game itself was at issue.

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