Column: Congress made mistake in passing IGRA in 1988

Thursday, April 22, 2010  

"Last week I wrote about the history of Indian gambling and the 1987 landmark case of Cabazon Tribe v. California leading up to the hasty enactment of the IGRA.

The first mistake Congress made in trying to clarify for the states the impact of the Supreme Court in the Cabazon case was in the name of the Act itself. To me, games are checkers, chess, basketball, etc. The gambling industry came up with the name change, calling gambling games “Gaming.” They apparently hoped to shed the inherent stigma associated with gambling activities and transform gambling into what they classify as recreational entertainment.

If it were really a “game” then the visitors, who nearly always lose, would have the worst record of anyone competing in any “game” against the home team. Not only the fact that the odds of winning anything are so poor, it is hard to imagine that anyone could describe losing large amounts of money as “entertainment.” What Congress failed to realize, or perhaps intentionally ignored, was that when they enacted the IGRA, there was already in place a long and confusing set of laws, rules and case decisions loosely called “Indian Law.” Some of the obscure, often irrational and unintelligible provisions of this body of law would shock most reasonable people. The advent of Indian gambling, however, exposed this body of existing laws to widespread public scrutiny, particularly when the extent and application of these principals, are now being applied to the non-Indian public who frequent the expanding numbers of Indian casinos and other Indian businesses.

One would think the first simple question that Congress would have asked before enacting this controversial legislation is, “Who is an Indian?” More particularly before giving any Indian tribe the right to operate an essentially unregulated gambling casino, Congress would have also needed to understand “What is an Indian tribe?”"

Get the Story:
Jim Marino: THE INDIAN GAMING AND REGULATORY ACT OF 1988: A WELL INTENDED LAW GONE AWRY (The Santa Ynez Valley Journal 4/22)