Free Republic

A federal judge today ruled against the Seneca Nation's Buffalo Creek Casino, saying that casino gambling cannot legally take place on the nine-acre site on Michigan Avenue. U.S. District Judge William M. Skretny, in a 127-page decision, vacated the earlier decision by the commissioner of the National Indian Gaming Commission to allow gambling. It was not immediately clear whether Skretny's ruling will halt construction on the $333 million permanent casino, but it is clear that the temporary casino no longer has the legal right to operate. Skretny ruled that the parcel is indeed Indian country. "However, the court finds that...

Southern California gamblers can try their luck this weekend on shiny new slot machines just days after voters approved four Indian gambling expansion plans. Workers have been busy installing some of the 17,000 slot machines allowed in new deals approved by voters Tuesday for four tribes. The new deals, known as amended compacts, allow the tribes to expand in exchange for sharing their slot-machine revenue with the state. The first payments, expected to be more than $40 million, are due to the state at the end of the fiscal year June 30, according to the governor's office's lowest estimates. That...

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's bet that the state could balance its budget next year with revenue from bigger Indian casinos is unrealistic, a report released Friday by the state's nonpartisan Legislative Analyst says. Schwarzenegger's proposal to let tribes install some 22,500 new slot machines and then collect more than $500 million in new fees and taxes from them is critical to his plan to wipe out the state's chronic budget deficit next year. Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill, who in recent weeks has blasted the governor's spending plan for relying on rosy revenue projections, on Friday took aim at its...

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES is due to vote soon on proposals to ban online gambling, and the deck seems stacked in favor of sound bites over sound policy. Federal law already outlaws businesses from using phone lines to place or receive bets across state lines, particularly when the bets are on sporting events. That restriction, although it's not a clear ban on Internet gambling, has stopped the country's major casinos from taking bets online. What it hasn't done is stop Web users from gambling around the clock at offshore sites, often based in Central America and the Caribbean. According to...

POSTED: 3:15 pm PDT June 21, 2004 UPDATED: 6:50 pm PDT June 21, 2004 SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed new Indian gambling compacts with representatives of five California tribes Monday in a deal that's estimated to bring in at least $1 billion for the current budget and annual payments afterward of between $150 million and $200 million a year. About 300 people attended the ceremony in which Schwarzenegger and tribal officials signed the compacts on a stage and then presented each other with gifts. The governor received a ceremonial blanket, while he gave the tribes a crystal statue etched...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to win the state a cut of Indian gambling profits while sidetracking two gambling initiatives on the November ballot is far from a safe bet, analysts said Wednesday. Looking to ease a budget crisis, the governor has argued since last year's recall campaign that casinos run by more than 50 California tribes don't pay their fair share. The governor announced Tuesday he is close to inking a deal with five tribes that would give the state more than $1 billion for his new budget and smaller amounts in later years. But leaders...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress should cap the amount of casino revenue tribes can give to states because large payments can constitute an illegal tax, the head of the Interior Department's Indian gambling office said Wednesday.</p> <p>George Skibine, director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Office of Indian Gaming Management, said at a Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing that tribal payments should be capped at 10 percent or less of revenue.</p>

Below is a letter sent by Assembly Speaker John Gard to colleagues via e-mail this morning. A spokesman for the tribe, Tom Krajewski, called Gard's analysis comparing the deals "totally preposterous." Dear Colleagues, New documents our office has received concerning the Potawatomi gaming compact negotiations raise new questions about the compact agreement announced last week by Governor Doyle.Attached (note; link is to a PDF version of this document) you will find a copy of the compact offer presented by the Potawatomi negotiators (Eric Dahlstorm) to Department of Administration negotiators (Mike McClure) last September. In this offer, the Potawatomi state, "This...