Indian Gaming Expansion Getting Obama Boost?

Advocates of 30 proposed Indian casinos around the country, and more to be proposed, have gotten good news from the Obama administration.

Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar has ordered the Bureau of Indian Affairs to reconsider regulations for casinos off reservations and on land taken into trust for tribes after the 1988 passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.

This gives new life to proposed casinos ranging from the Catskill Mountains of New York to the city of Richmond in San Francisco Bay.

It could mean the end of regulations adopted under President George Bush that halted casino development far from reservations, such as in the Catskills where the St. Regis Mohawks want to build a casino resort with Empire Resorts though the site is more than 300 miles from their reservation.

In all, New York has authorized three Catskill Mountains casinos, and more liberal regulations could give life to other tribes wanting to build there.

At present, there are six applications for Indian casinos off reservation and 24 on land taken into trust after 1988.

In addition, liberalized rules could give birth to new applications, such as the Wampanoag Indian tribes of Massachusetts who are proposing a casino in Fall River.

No timeline has been issued for new regulations, or how long the land-into-trust process would take under new rules. The process now takes years, and in the case of off-reservation casinos, often many years.

In some cases, because local political opposition can kill off-reservation approvals, they may never happen, such as in San Francisco Bay.

Salazar noted that since 1988, only five off-reservation casinos have been approved.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 30th, 2010 at 7:52 am and is filed under Gaming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.