American Indian Gaming Regulatory Act

American Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (1988), an attempt by Congress to find a compromise between the rights of tribes to engage in gaming activities and the ability of the states to control gambling within their borders. Neither group was pleased with the act, and several lawsuits have been filed over statutory interpretation. Many tribes want the definition of tribal land to include any property under control of the tribe; many states feel tribal land should be restricted to mean historic reservation land. Many tribes assert that they are federally recognized, self-governing units that can decide their own gaming policies; many states believe gaming policy should be defined in a state's constitution.

The act defines three categories of gaming: Class I encompasses social and traditional games solely within the Indian tribe's jurisdiction; Class II includes bingo and similar games authorized by tribal resolution in states where private gambling is not prohibited by law; Class III includes casinos and operates under the same restrictions as Class II, but in addition, a compact between the state and the Indian tribe must define how the gaming will be conducted and must be approved by the Secretary of the Department of the Interior. In the early twenty-first century over half the states had some form of Indian gambling.

Unlike profits from non-Indian gambling activities, tribal gambling profits, as stipulated by the act, must be used for the welfare of the tribe, such as for education and housing. A loophole in the law allows individuals to profit after the social issues have been addressed.

As the number of Indian casinos has grown, problems have arisen. Some casinos are successful and raise a tribe's standard of living, while others have gone bankrupt. In their search for investors to bankroll startup costs, tribes have become targets for organized crime. Additionally, states cannot regulate whether jackpots are awarded or if low-payout machines are used. In some cases where compacts negotiated in good faith have not been reached, tribes have operated casinos without signed compacts. The National Indian Gaming Commission acts as a watchdog for the act.

Bibliography

Riconda, Andrew, ed. Gambling. New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1995.

—Veda Boyd Jones