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Amid infighting between certain California tribes over two federally approved casinos, the state’s top tribal gaming advocate has stressed the importance of tribes working together to tackle illegal gambling.
James Siva, chairman of the California Nations Indian Gaming Association (CNIGA), did not address the dispute over the Biden administration’s approvals in January of the Koi Nation and Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians casinos, instead focusing his opening remarks at last week's Western Indian Gaming Conference on CNIGA’s legislative accomplishments and tribal support for communities affected by the recent wildfires.
Siva said the tribes' biggest legislative achievement over the past year was the passage of Senate Bill 549, also known as the Tribal Nations Access to Justice Act, granting tribes legal standing to sue commercial cardrooms for offering illegal games.
The bill gave the tribes a three-month window to file a lawsuit starting on January 1.
Seven gaming tribes filed a lawsuit in Sacramento County Superior Court the following day against dozens of cardrooms, claiming they offer illegal card games such as blackjack and pai gow poker in violation of tribal gaming exclusivity to offer banked-card games.
“SB 549 was a fair and impartial measure that sought to settle a decade-plus dispute,” Siva told attendees at the annual tribal gaming conference in Temecula.
“Prior to SB 549, California’s tribal governments worked for over a decade to find a remedy for the illegal activities occurring at commercial cardrooms, to no avail,” Siva said. “Proposed regulations issued by past attorneys general failed to make any progress and were met with fierce objections and threats of litigation by the cardroom industry.”
Siva added that compromises were even discussed but ultimately rejected by the cardrooms.
The bill was sponsored by former Democratic Senator Josh Newman of Orange County, who lost his bid for re-election in November to former Republican Assemblymember Steven Choi.
Since the lawsuit was filed on January 2 not much has happened. Much of the first few weeks have been setting up a filing notice and creating a communications process for the cardrooms and third-party proposition providers (TPPPS) that have been named as defendants in the lawsuit.
Still, cardrooms are not the only gaming issue facing California tribes.
Siva noted that it was only two years ago that FanDuel, DraftKings and other commercial gaming companies tried and failed to legalize online sports betting in California via a ballot initiative.
Siva did not mention when tribes might begin gathering signatures to put another sports-betting initiative on the ballot, instead focusing on new forms of offshore and illegal gaming that threaten their gaming exclusivity.
“We are seeing an increase of commercial gaming relating to daily fantasy sports (DFS), sweepstakes, peer-to-peer wagering, crypto casinos and more,” Siva said. “As tribal governments know, the threats we face don’t go away; they just change form. We must stay alert and be ready.”
Siva has made CNIGA’s position clear that its tribal members believe DFS and sweepstakes companies are operating illegally in California. He has also criticized state officials for not being as responsive as other jurisdictions in addressing these operations.
In October 2023, Republican Senator Scott Wilk requested that the state attorney general’s office issue an opinion on whether fantasy contests can be offered in the state. As of Friday (February 28), that opinion had not yet been released.
Tribes Seek To Overturn Koi, Scotts Valley Casinos
Meanwhile, three more northern California tribes have sued the federal government over its recent approval of the Koi Nation’s $600m casino-resort project on more than 68 acres of vineyard land, paving the way for Sonoma County’s third tribal casino.
Lytton Rancheria, Dry Creek Rancheria and Cloverdale Rancheria filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., against the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI).
Their lawsuit comes after the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria filed a similar action seeking to overturn the DOI’s approval and remove the Koi Nation’s land from federal trust, arguing the approval violates its tribal rights and federal laws regarding environmental impacts.
Both lawsuits assert that the DOI and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) violated federal law by fast-tracking the Koi Nation’s land-into-trust applications and gaming approval without proper tribal consultation.
“This approval is nothing short of a political maneuver that disregards the rights of Sonoma County’s historic tribes,” said Lytton Rancheria chairperson Andy Mejia. “It undermines tribal self-determination … and sets a dangerous precedent that would allow any tribe to claim land for outside its ancestral territory to open a casino.”
Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, opposed the approvals of the Koi Nation project and a similar $700m casino project by the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians in Vallejo, some 32 miles east of San Francisco and 100 miles way from the tribe’s traditional lands.
Both tribal projects were approved by the DOI and BIA in mid-January during the waning days of the Biden administration. It is unclear if the Trump administration would support overturning both decisions.
President Trump has a long history of clashes with Native Americans over the expansion of tribal gaming in Connecticut and New York in the 1990s, which he believed posed a threat to his Atlantic City casinos.
That history along with proposed restrictions on off-reservation gaming considered during Trump’s first term in office means some expect the administration to be even less receptive to tribal casino projects such as those approved by the outgoing Biden administration.
