National Indian Gaming Association Wants Congress To Dissolve PASPA
Nobody watching the ongoing drama surrounding the imminent US Supreme Court decision as to the constitutionality of the law prohibiting sports betting outside Nevada expected tribal gambling operators to be silent on the subject forever.
Well, consider that silence broken now, and in a fairly substantial way. In fact, the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA) recently passed a resolution requesting that the US Congress dissolve the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA) altogether, rather than waiting on the SCOTUS justices to strike the law from the books or not. The resolution, which came out of a meeting held at the 2018 NIGA Tradeshow and Convention in Las Vegas over the course of last week, argues that the tribes will find themselves at a disadvantage in competition with the commercial casinos and gaming operators located inside the same state lines if they are not allowed to offer sports betting.
“Depending on the wording on the case and how it comes out (from the Supreme Court) it could end up that the prohibition against the states is repealed but the prohibition against the tribes remains, said Aurene Martin, one of the members of the Bad River Bank of Lake Superior Chippewa tribe, according to a CDC Gaming Reports story. “I think that’s unlikely, but it’s definitely a possibility. We have seen some unusual things happen in Indian country in the last ten to fifteen years. It’s conceivable the Supreme Court could do this.”
The tribes’ collective reasoning goes like this (and it is easy to see how NIGA members could have come to such a conclusion): if PASPA is declared unconstitutional by the highest court in the land as a result of New Jersey’s case defending its own sports betting law, thereby making wagering on sports legal nationwide, then the tribes have to be allowed to get in on the action as well.
NIGA membership is made up of the 184 federally recognized tribes that have been granted Congressional protections through the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 (IGRA), which includes a provision to allow tribal organizations the right to operate casinos on a tax-free basis on their tribal lands. Accordingly, the tribal ruling councils in each state generally are at least offered exclusive gambling rights by the state governments in which tribal lands are located – though, naturally, sports betting is just as much off the menu for the tribes as it is for the states. However, in the recent NIGA resolution the NIGA members make the argument that “lawmakers should fully recognize and protect Indian gaming operations and satisfy the NIGA Principles of Sovereignty,” and by that they mean they want to be able to offer sports betting under the same tax free system too.
Though New Jersey’s congressional delegation has long contended that pushing the rest of Congress to repeal and replace PASPA was always its backup plan, the increasingly likely outcome of a favorable Supreme Court decision by no later than the close of this year’s term in June pushed the plan even further to the back burner. The perceived lack of need to rely on a Congressional repeal of PASPA plays into the confusion surrounding the reveal of the recent NIGA resolution. Why do the tribes feel the need to ask Congress directly for a repeal? It comes down to two often overlooked portions of the PASPA language that have the tribes quite worried indeed.
First of all, LegalGamblingUSA knows if PASPA were to cease to be the law of the land and the states were able to regulate a legal sports betting market of their own, then that would be a great boon for the states’ commercial gaming operations but simultaneously a bane for the tribal casinos. PASPA places limits on governmental entities and what they are allowed to conduct sports gambling operations of which tribal governments are a part, meaning that sports betting – even were it to be legal for the states – would be illegal for the tribes, per the 1988 version of the IGA. That being said, it makes a good deal of sense why the tribes, voicing their concern through the NIGA resolution, want to avoid any impediments to being able to offer sports betting options for visitors at their casinos, and they are evidently eager to work with the states to get it.
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