A lawsuit seeking closure of the tiny Gun Lake casino in Michigan could have a major effect on the nation’s Indian casino market, an industry that posted $26.73 billion in revenue in 2010, according to the Indian Gaming Industry Report.
Analysts say this week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision to remand the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals could make it more difficult to fund tribal casino projects or even delay some projects until the matter is settled. The $160 million resort targeted in the lawsuit is in Wayland Township, 20 miles south of Grand Rapids. It was developed and is managed by Las Vegas-based Station Casinos LLC.
“The decision has the potential to change how the federal government takes land into trust for tribes,” said Steven Light, co-director of the Institute for the Study of Tribal Gaming Law and Policy at the University of North Dakota. “It’s potentially a huge problem for expansion of gaming for recently recognized tribes.”
The American Gaming Association put out a new video in support of making online poker legal (now!). Though plenty corny, it’s possibly the slickest representation of all the talking points certain poker people have been refining and pushing for the past several years — and yet it’s kinda dumbed down enough for legislators to see the probablility of looking kinda stupid (and un-Tea Partyish if they’re Republican) should they ignore this 2011 opportunity to re-Americanize online poker.
(I think I recognize that woman’s voice from some political attack ad in 2010 … or maybe it was ’08?)
LOL on the “SEIZED” sites — ShadyPoker.com represented by cards with stars on them and ShadierPoker.com with a red triangle. Guess they didn’t want to overreach by indicting the Shady dot-nets? The AGA also opened up a new section on their website — their Online Poker Headquarters.
The nuances and import of this story are probably a little beyond my ken — involving more factors than just online gaming and Indian poker lands … but it’s not a tough leap to see it as potentially relevant as the US continues to move in this period of “pre-regulation” we seem to be in at the federal level.
Does Feinsiten have a sincere interest in limiting various Tribes’ expansions? Or could this be part of a multi-level political negotiation connected to future online poker and gambling bills currently being haggled over in Washington DC? It’s just a hypothesis at this point — no real information on my end — but it seems likely that Feinstein’s legislation could become a bargaining chip for Harry Reid should it gather momentum. Just the threat of such restrictions, you would think, limits the power of Native Americans as they lobby to make sure they factor into the 21st Century gambling equation.
