{"id":3062,"date":"2024-07-31T22:15:29","date_gmt":"2024-07-31T22:15:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/?p=3062"},"modified":"2024-08-29T13:39:14","modified_gmt":"2024-08-29T13:39:14","slug":"alaskas-second-gaming-hall-gets-federal-ok-after-tribes-25-year-wait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/index.php\/2024\/07\/31\/alaskas-second-gaming-hall-gets-federal-ok-after-tribes-25-year-wait\/","title":{"rendered":"Alaska\u2019s Second Gaming Hall Gets Federal OK After Tribe\u2019s 25-Year Wait"},"content":{"rendered":"

A proposal by the Native Village of Eklutna, an Alaska Native group, to build an electronic bingo hall on its land 20 miles outside of Anchorage has been signed off by the federal government. That\u2019s more than a quarter of a century after it was first envisioned.<\/p>\n

\"Native
Traditional Eklutna dancers in the Native village, just north of Anchorage, Alaska. Recent DOI opinions related to Alaska Native\u2019s sovereign rights have proved to be a game-changer for the tribe\u2019s casino ambitions. (Image: Flkr)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Interior Department\u2019s National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC) approved the plan last month, six years after the Trump administration turned down the tribe\u2019s application. The decision paves the way for that rarest of things in Alaska \u2013 a new gaming venue.<\/p>\n

Alaska has no casinos and no state lottery, but it does have one electronic bingo hall and a small handful of charitable bingo establishments.<\/p>\n

The problem for the Eklutna, up to this point, has been that Alaskan tribes have a different legal status to their counterparts in \u201cthe Lower 48.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s largely thanks to the Nixon-era Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA). The act awarded the tribes land and financial compensation but recharacterized them as private corporations as opposed to sovereign nations with sovereign powers.<\/p>\n

Limited Sovereignty <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Under the\u00a0Indian Gaming Regulatory Act<\/a>\u00a0(IGRA), Native American tribes are free to open class II gaming facilities \u2014 such as electronic bingo halls \u2014 on their land without the permission of state authorities provided such operations are legal elsewhere in the state.<\/p>\n

But a tribe must have governmental authority over its land to have gaming rights there, and the Eklutna didn\u2019t, according to the 2018 Trump administration decision.<\/p>\n

That decision was based on the Sansonetti Opinion, a George H.W. Bush-era legal opinion that concluded Native Village sovereignty was severely limited.<\/p>\n

\n

Alaska\u2019s only existing electronic bingo hall is operated by the Metlakatla Indian Community, which declined to sign on to ANCSA.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Eklutna sued the Interior Department, unsuccessfully<\/a>, in 2019. It argued that it had exercised jurisdiction and provided governmental services since it was granted its land in 1906 through land management and environmental protection.<\/p>\n

New Rules<\/strong><\/h2>\n

But the tribe\u2019s fortunes turned in November 2022 when Interior Department Solicitor Robert Anderson determined that\u00a0ANCSA did not prohibit the federal government from taking land into trust for Alaska Natives.<\/p>\n

Then, in February this year, Anderson essentially reversed the Sansonetti opinion. Anderson opined that tribal authority should apply to land allotted to Alaska Natives provided it was not \u201cgeographically removed from the tribal community.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the Eklutna, this was a game changer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s still a few hurdles to clear, but we feel the major hurdles have been cleared,\u201d Eklutna Tribal Council President and Chair Aaron Leggett told The Alaska Beacon<\/em> this week.<\/p>\n

\n

Right now, we\u2019re in dire need of housing,\u201d he added. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to raise finance to construct a gathering center\/office space for the Tribe. We have our small clinic, but we don\u2019t have much in the way of any infrastructure \u2026 so we feel that this will spur development in the village, it\u2019ll spur development in the area, and it\u2019ll spur development for Anchorage too.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Those hurdles that still need to be cleared include an environmental review and potential lawsuits, not least from the anti-gambling State of Alaska, which has described Anderson\u2019s opinions as \u201cwrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026[W]ith a stroke of its pen, Interior purportedly changed how Alaska has operated for the last 50 plus years,\u201d lawyers wrote in a February court filing.<\/p>\n

The post Alaska\u2019s Second Gaming Hall Gets Federal OK After Tribe\u2019s 25-Year Wait<\/a> appeared first on Casino.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A proposal by the Native Village of Eklutna, an Alaska Native group, to build an electronic bingo hall on its land 20 miles outside of Anchorage has been signed off by the federal government. That\u2019s more than a quarter of a century after it was first envisioned. Traditional Eklutna dancers in the Native village, just…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3062"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3062"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3065,"href":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3062\/revisions\/3065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/restaurace-pohoda.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}