Who can own and operate a casino in California?
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According to the CGCC, Native Americans were allowed to establish gaming operations on tribal land after the passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in 1988.
SACRAMENTO, Calif — Following the early opening of Sky River Casino in Elk Grove, many community members have made their voices heard about their excitement and opposition to the casino. One ABC10 viewer asks, will other ethnicities have their own casinos in the future?
The Sky River Casino in Elk Grove was originally set to open at the end of October 2022, but in July, the Wilton Rancheria Tribe announced they were pushing for a September date. The casino opened even earlier in mid-August.
ABC10’s new show “To The Point with Alex Bell” ran a segment highlighting the casino’s early opening. Casey, a viewer of the show, emailed the following question, “Would you think in the future that other ethnicities of people will have their own casinos?”
We cannot predict the future, but we can help provide information.
We reached out to Fred Castano, public information officer for the California Gambling Control Commission, and asked “Why can Native Americans own casinos in California?” and “Can anyone — non-Native American — own casinos in the state of California?”
Castano says, “In California, federally recognized Native American tribes own and operate casinos where they can offer Class III gaming, which includes slot machines and offering house-banked games. Tribes enter into compact agreements with the state, which are negotiated by the Governor’s Office, and these compacts codify the casino’s gaming activities and financial arrangements with the state and local governments.
There are also gaming operations in California that are not owned and operated by tribes, and they are known as cardrooms. Cardrooms cannot offer the types of gaming that tribal casinos can. In cardrooms, players are betting against each other in games like poker, whereas in tribal casinos, players can bet against the house in games like blackjack.”
Castano further highlighted why Native Americans can own and operate casinos by pointing to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act that was passed by Congress in 1988.
According to the National Indian Gaming Commission, “tribal gaming, as we think of it today, dates back to the 1970s when a number of Indian tribes established bingo operations as a means of raising revenue to fund tribal government operations.”
About two decades later, through the court case California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, 480 U.S. 202 (1987), “the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed the inherent authority of tribal governments to establish and regulate gaming operations independent of state regulation, provided that the state in question permits some form of gaming.”
This case and the debate over whether tribal governments possessed the authority to conduct gaming independently of state regulation, led to the passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988.
