A panel at the National Indian Gaming Association conference focused on land-into-trust.
The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act requires casinos to be on "Indian land." For newly recognized tribes, that means going through the land-into-trust process. But the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Carcieri v. Salazar placed doubts for the newly recognized Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and others. The ruling requires a tribe to be "under federal jurisdiction" as of 1934 to follow the land-into-trust process. Tribes are pushing Congress to fix the decision but the bill has failed to pass for the last three years. Get the Story: