The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and Arizona Casinos

Casinos are nothing new and they can be found just about anywhere your travels take you in the United States. The state of Arizona is no different. If you live in Arizona or have traveled there, you have likely passed by one or more of the ever popular casinos in the desert southwest.

A study done by NAU (Northern Arizona University) confirmed the popularity through an extensive research project. NAU researched gaming and when the study was completed, the results were very clear. The report indicated that one-third of all Arizonans responded that they too, had gambled in a casino in Arizona.

In 1988, the U.S. It was Congress who passed an act which later became known as the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, also referred to as IGRA. IGRA has long recognized the popular entertainment form of gaming and has used it as a means to promote economic development of many Indian Tribes.

There are many people who honestly believe that casinos have been the answer to Native Americans becoming self sufficient in order to be able to promote their own Tribal government through the money profits of these such Arizona casinos.

The AIGA organization represents the membership of some 19 Tribes and represent 90 percent of the Native American Indians who live on the reservations within the sate of Arizona. This organization was created to help both protect and promote the welfare of Native American Indian Tribes. Their focus has been, and still is, is to help their members strive to be self reliant.

The organization stands by their belief that they are most definitely committed to both maintaining and protecting the Indian sovereign government authority. The IGRA Regulatory Act allows any state to operate Indian gaming on reservations if the state permits such gaming off-reservation.

The IGRA Act was a result of a Supreme Court ruling that basically said that states do not have any leverage over gaming on any United States Tribe reservation.

Prior to this Act, the 1987 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, really meant that states do not have any regulatory authority when it comes to Indian reservation casinos.

The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 permitted states and Indian Tribes to be able to regulate Class III Tribal gaming, which is inclusive of games such as blackjack, slot machines, keno and other such related casino style games.

During the early 1990s, there were several Arizona Tribes that had installed slot machines in their casinos even though none of them had Tribal-State Gaming Compacts with the state. At that time, the Arizona governor Symington believed that Native American reservations should not be allowed to have casinos, because at that time, Arizona did not permit any gambling that was considered to be off-reservation.

Tribes contended that Arizona was already permitting gambling by allowing gambling acts such as horse and dog racing, charity bingo games, as well as the state lotteries that were readily available.

The National Indian Gaming Commission issued rules that clarified these rules in 1992, which said that a Tribe must have a gaming Compact with a state before it is allowed to operate slot machines on its land.

Following this ruling, the Arizona Governor called on the United States Attorney in Phoenix, Arizona, to proceed to shut down any and all casinos that had slot machines. It was like something that you would see in a movie. FBI agents raided several Indian gaming casinos and seized their gaming slot machines.

At the Fort McDowell Casino located near Scottsdale, Arizona, many of the Native American Tribal members tried to prevent these agents from removing their slot machines by forming a blockade which resulted in a three week long standoff.

One year later in 1993, the governor signed off on an agreement with the Native American Indian tribes which allowed Tribes to have these gaming slot machines on each of their reservations.

Not included in this Compact agreement were any table games. In 2003, however, the popular game of blackjack was added to the list of table games that were allowed.