GGB: Gary Pitchlynn fighting for gaming rights of tribal clients

Tuesday, January 3, 2012  

"Tribal attorney Gary Pitchlynn has spent most of his career helping Indians find equal footing in the casino industry. The self-described “half-breed” (his father was Choctaw) was among the first to take on the National Indian Gaming Commission in the 1990s, when it tried to limit the freedoms affirmed by the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act by shutting down electronic bingo in his native Oklahoma.

As lead litigator for a dozen tribes, Pitchlynn helped rebuild the dismantled industry, betting that sufficient gaming revenue would allow the Indians to defend against any enforcement by the NIGC and the Department of Justice.

Over time, most of the tribes “withdrew from the battlefield,” Pitchlynn says. He fought on, alongside the Absentee Shawnee tribe of Oklahoma and the Seminole Nation. It took years, but the strategy succeeded.

“The last of our litigation was in 2001 or 2002,” says Pitchlynn, “and the first compacts were in place by 2004.”"

Get the Story:
Lone Wolf (Global Gaming Business Magazine January 2011)