"The first thing that hits you when you stroll through the doors of Casino San Pablo is the low-hanging haze of cigarette fumes. For a smoke-free state, it's a jolt. How can they get away with this in California?

"This is Indian land,'' shrugs an employee. "They can do what they want.''

That may not mean much to you. Maybe you don't play two-handed poker or Pai Gow, or maybe you don't care that the Lytton Band, a 253-member Indian tribe, was awarded this little chunk of land in the middle of San Pablo last fall as a reservation.

But you are going to care. Soon."

Get the Story:
C.W. Nevius: Odds are on Little Reno by the bay (The San Francisco Chronicle 4/27)