Continuing its persecution of the Poarch Creek Band of Indians, the State of Alabama is taking them to federal appeals court. And it looks like state Attorney General Luther Strange might have a leg to stand on. He’s citing the Carcieri v. Salazar, which prevents the Department of Interior from taking land into trust for gambling purposes for tribes recognized after 1934. The Poarch Creek Indians weren’t recognized until 50 years later.
The other prong of Strange’s argument regards the Class II machines used by the tribe and devolves into an “Is so!” “Is not!” argument with the National Indian Gaming Commission. The NIGC has decreed that the electronic-bingo devices in question are Class II. But Strange claims that all their bells and whistles make them “play like, look like, sound like, and attract the same class of customers as acknowledged slot machines.”
Reads the brief, “Because ‘slot machines of any kind’ cannot be operated without a state’s consent under IGRA, slot machine manufacturers and Indian tribes have gone to great lengths to conflate class III slot machines with ‘technological aids’ used to play the class II game of bingo … By recasting class III machines as class II ‘technological aids,’ tribal gambling officers have avoided the necessity of negotiating a compact with the surrounding state.”
Strange has already lost the first round in federal court and is now going to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. It will interesting to see how this plays out.
* As the Kansas Lottery Board tries to find somebody, anybody to build a casino in the southern part of the state, its job just got harder. The Cherokee Nation has announced plans to build its own casino in South Coffeyville, Oklahoma, just across the border from — you guessed it Kansas. While the permanent casino is being built, the Cherokee will bolt together some modular buildings and let the games begin. The ninth Cherokee casino, its primary target customers are Kansans … which makes you if its worth the trouble to keep shopping that last Sunflower State license around.
* Meanwhile in the Carolinas …
