The Supreme Court has said that the federal government may not commandeer state resources to achieve federal objectives. On the other hand, the court has said that the federal government may regulate all sorts of things directly and that federal laws pre-empt contrary state laws under the Constitution’s supremacy clause.

Most of Monday’s argument in Christie v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, No. 16-476, was an effort to decide whether the 1992 law amounted to unconstitutional commandeering or permissible pre-emption.

Theodore B. Olson, a lawyer for New Jersey, said the law was a “direct command” to the states rather than a federal effort to regulate sports betting.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer proposed a distinction. The federal government can first make a policy determination to regulate an activity, he said. “Once it makes that determination, it can forbid state laws inconsistent with that determination,” he said. “That’s called pre-emption.” What it cannot do, he added, “is to tell the state how to legislate.”

Mr. Olson agreed. “I wish I had said that myself, Justice Breyer,” he said.

Justice Elena Kagan did not seem fully persuaded, asking whether state officials were required to do anything in particular by the 1992 law. “Who is being conscripted in order to do what here?” she asked.

Paul D. Clement, a lawyer for the sports leagues and Mr. Olson’s successor as solicitor general in the George W. Bush administration, said the 1992 law was part of a set of regulations establishing federal policy. “Congress in all of these statutes did not want there to be sports gambling schemes operating in interstate commerce,” he said.

Jeffrey B. Wall, a deputy solicitor general who argued in support of the leagues, said New Jersey was not entitled to repeal only a part of its law, thereby “channeling sports gambling to particular state-preferred providers.” He added that the federal government would not object to a wholesale repeal of the state law.