Planned Tribal Casinos Continue To Draw ControversyLawsuits Fly As Issues Play Out In Court, New Administration |
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For the last decade-plus, tribal gaming has gone from simple bingo parlors on reservations to billion-dollar casino operations, with some tribes even operating casinos away from their traditional lands. But now some changes in federal stances on this type of gaming are now putting some tribes at odds with each other.
Three tribal groups in California and Oregon are awaiting approval on their own casino plans, which have drawn criticism from other tribes that believe the new properties would affect their own gaming operations that are already in place.
For example, the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians in California is hoping to build a $700 million casino on 160 acres near San Francisco. The nearby Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation opposes the property and has been critical of the federal government in regards to approving the tribal gaming effort.
“The Department of the Interior has worked through a secretive, backdoor, fast-track process,” Yocha Dehe Wintun chairman Anthony Roberts recently told the New York Times. “Unfortunately, Yocha Dehe’s been left out.”
Other Plans Criticized
The Koi Nation is also hoping to build a casino resort on its ancestral homeland about an hour north of San Francisco. That has drawn opposition from the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, which also claims the land and argues that the Koi’s efforts amount to an “illegal land grab.”
“They have no business in our area,” Graton Rancheria chairman Greg Sarris said in November. “You can’t start having tribes move into other tribes’ territories.”
The Koi argue that Graton Rancheria is simply hoping to protect its own business.
The Coquille tribe in Oregon has also drawn criticism for attempting to build a casino more than 150 miles from its lands. The tribe is located in the North Bend area on the west coast and is seeking to set up shop in Medford in the southwest region of the state.
However, Karuk tribe chairman Russell “Buster” Attebery said the Coquille were attempting to “reservation jump” with plans for a new California casino. He said the casino would result in a 27% revenue loss for the Karuks’ Rain Rock Casino, located about an hour away in northern part of the state.
“When you come to tribes that want to reservation jump, if you will, to other areas that are in this case, 150 to 160 miles away from their casino, and their lands, their homelands, the precedent it will set could be very devastating to the very premise that the tribes, because they’re sovereign nations, were able to develop an economy that included in Nevada-style gaming on their homelands,” Attebery told the Times-Standard newspaper.
Issue Shifts To Court, New Administration
Much of the opposition to the casinos has been playing out in court with a federal judge recently putting a temporary halt on the three casinos’ construction. The disputes come after the Biden administration relaxed rules governing the tribes’ ability to open gambling facilities.
Federal law allows for the construction of tribal casinos on tribal land acquired before 1988. There is also an exception for tribes that are disadvantaged and no longer have access to their federal lands, but they must show modern and historical connections to the land for a planned casino.
Whether the tribes meet those thresholds remains to be seen as the issues continue to play out in court. Tribal gaming approvals now may shift into the new presidency with the Trump administration possibly now determining the future of similar casino proposals.
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