Don’t Harm Sovereignty with Gambling Legislation, Tribes Urge Senators

Introduction of gaming operations brought increased revenue, which allowed the tribes to provide better healthcare and education for their members without the help of federal funding, tribal representatives testified. “When we had the opportunity to start gaming, we were able to stop receiving any federal grants or funds to support our tribe members,” said Bryce “Two Dogs” Bozsum, chairman of the Mohegan Tribe in Uncasville, Conn. “We took our funding from the casino.” With the legalization of online gambling, tribal communities that are unable to open a physical casino due to their physical location would be able to obtain some of those benefits, he said.

Committee Vice Chairman John Barrasso, R-Wyo., asked Tracie Stevens, chair of the National Indian Gaming Commission, how NGIC would suggest Congress legislate on Internet gambling. “I will leave that to the tribes to discuss,” Stevens said. “It is vitally important that the tribes be consulted at every step of the process,” said Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn. He asked Stevens what she thinks will be major issues if Congress were to pass a law on online gambling. She said that, as a regulatory agency, the NGIC would defer to the tribes.

When asked by Akaka what tribes have done to prepare themselves for a potential introduction of online gambling, witnesses repeatedly said that, due to current legal obstacles, the tribes have been limited to researching online gambling. Glen Gobin, secretary of the Tulalip Tribes of Washington in Tulalip, Wash., said state law prohibits online gambling. “We're not actively seeking any participation in [online gambling] right now,” he said, and the tribe will not until the Washington law is changed.

Akaka said he had released a discussion draft for the Tribal Online Gaming Act of 2012, which seeks to legalize online poker games hosted by tribal gaming organizations. Witnesses said they planned to review it. Bozsum said he would “love to comment on it” once he has looked it over with his staff. The National Indian Gaming Association “welcomes this opportunity to analyze the discussion draft and we are immediately consulting with Tribal leadership,” Chairman Ernie Stevens said in a written statement. Online gambling legislation “must respect Tribal Sovereignty and meet NIGA’s internet principles that were unanimously adopted by our 184 member tribes,” he said. The Internet principles require tribal revenue be kept exempt from tax, that the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act be closed to amendments and that tribes continue to be treated as sovereign governments. Gobin called NIGA’s Internet principles “critical for Indian country."

Gobin urged Congress not pass legislation creating new regulatory agencies or challenging tribes’ sovereignty. There’s no pending legislation on Internet gambling, but previously discussed legislation would introduce an additional regulatory body, which he and other witnesses oppose, Gobin said. “There is only one federal agency that has had any history of regulatory oversight of gaming,” he said. “And that agency is the NIGC."

"No other federal agency possess comparable knowledge or expertise” regarding tribal gambling, said Elizabeth Homer, a lawyer on American Indian legal issues and former NIGC vice chair. She said any additional federal agencies would not have the experience and resources of the NIGC. The Online Poker Act of 2011 sponsored by Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, called for oversight by the Commerce Department for tribal gambling operations. During an online gambling hearing in November, NIGA’s Stevens told the committee that he and his association opposed the act partly due to its oversight provisions (WID Nov 18 p1).

The Poker Players Alliance encouraged members to express frustration with the current online gambling legislative conversation, before ex-Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., testified on the alliance’s behalf. “[T]he primary focus of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearings has not been on players,” PPA Vice President Rich Muny said in a written statement (http://xrl.us/bnia4a). He asked PPA members and supporters to call their members of Congress and use social media to encourage their elected officials to support Barton’s Online Poker Act. Porter encouraged the committee to view online gambling uniformly, regardless of whether potential laws affected tribal communities or private gambling companies. The two communities are not that different, he said, and they should try to find ways to work together to provide opportunities to play poker, “a game of skill, not a game of chance,” online. Considering the foreign gambling websites do business with U.S. customers under the table, he testified that “to do nothing would be condoning the continuing abuse of the American people.”