So-called reservation shopping – the practice of tribes trying to acquire land for gambling operations near urban areas – is probably not going to lead to a casino in Pueblo, or to casinos popping up in cities across the nation, a leading expert said.
I. Nelson Rose, a professor of law at Whittier College in California, predicts failure for the bid by developer Steve Hillard and the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma to build a casino on Pueblo’s Arkansas Riverwalk or anywhere in the state.
“I’m not going to say it probably won’t happen in Colorado,” Rose said. “I’m saying it won’t happen. The tribes settled land claims with the state in (1965). The developers are being overly optimistic.”
With more than 228 Indian bands running more than 400 casinos in 28 states and pulling in about $19 billion in revenues last year, it’s not surprising that tribes without gaming operations – and tribes whose reservations are remote from potential patrons – are searching for casino sites near metropolitan areas and interstates.
By midyear, about 40 proposals for off-reservation casinos were pending in California. Seven of Wisconsin’s 11 tribes were looking at bigger markets, some across state lines. The isolated Jemez Pueblo of New Mexico is looking 300 miles to the south at a busy interstate location near Las Cruces, N.M., and El Paso, Texas. Dozens of attempts are being made by tribes across the country, including some that want casinos in Colorado, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Massachusetts, Illinois, New York and Washington.
Rose, a leading authority on Indian gaming law, said every situation is unique because each of the 562 federally recognized tribes has its own convoluted legal history.
Perhaps a few tribes will succeed, he said, even though a backlash against expansion of off-reservation Indian gaming has spurred months of congressional hearings and several reform bills, still pending.
Only three tribes have succeeded since the 1988 enactment of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. The Forest County Potawatomi Tribe opened the first off-reservation casino in 1992 in Milwaukee, about 160 miles from its Wisconsin reservation.
The Keweenaw Bay Indian Community opened a casino in the Marquette, Mich., area, 65 miles from its reservation, and the Kalispel Tribe opened a casino near Spokane, Wash., about 37 miles from its reservation.
The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act prohibits gaming on Indian land acquired in trust after 1988, unless the casinos are within reservation boundaries or are adjacent to an existing reservation.
For landless tribes, the restored lands must be located within the tribe’s last recognized reservation within the state where the tribe is located, said Heidi McNeil Staudenmaier, a lawyer with the Phoenix Indian gaming law practice of Snell & Wilmer.
Otherwise, tribes have to go through the Interior Department’s two-part determination.
The secretary of the interior, who has become increasingly wary of such proposals, must determine that acquiring land is in the best interest of the tribes and not detrimental to the surrounding community. The state’s governor must also agree.
Hillard has said he can bypass Gov. Bill Owens, an opponent, and the complicated Interior Department process spelled out in the 1988 gaming act. Instead, he said, he hopes to win congressional approval.
“Even if they somehow get the land and got it qualified as Indian land … they still have to negotiate a gaming compact with the state,” Rose said.
Staudenmaier said it is rare for a tribe to get an off-reservation casino as a land-claim settlement.
The only one she could cite was the Seneca Tribe, which has a downtown Niagara, N.Y., casino.
Staff writer Dave Curtin contributed to this report.
Staff writer Electa Draper can be reached at 970-385-0917 or edraper@denverpost.com.
