Just recently, Connecticut’s two federally recognized tribes released a letter from the Interior Department, their latest salvo in a struggle with MGM Resorts International over a new casino in the state. The letter has the potential to tip the scales between MGM and the tribes. But first, some background: MGM and the tribes are locked in a legal…
It’s ‘play on’ for the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah). On April 10, a First Circuit Court of Appeals three-judge panel weighed in on the nearly three-and-a-half-year dispute between the Tribe and the Commonwealth, the town of Aquinnah, and the Aquinnah/Gay Head Community Association over the Tribe’s plan to…
In a unanimous decision issued on Friday, authored by outgoing Justice Margot Botsford, Massachusetts’s highest court allowed Mohegan Sun’s challenge to the state Gaming Commission’s 2014 award of a gaming license to competing bidder Wynn MA, LLC, while disallowing similar challenges to the decision brought by the City of Revere…
About a year after New Jersey’s Division of Gaming Enforcement implemented regulations for skill-based machine gaming, “video game slot machines” have finally made their entrance in Atlantic City, to mixed acclaim. Most of the major Atlantic City casinos—Harrah’s, Caesars, and Tropicana—have now installed one of two skill-based machines (in some…
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent invitation for the Solicitor General to weigh on New Jersey’s sports betting case may give new life to the Garden State’s efforts to expand its gambling portfolio. But in the event that the Court ultimately decides not to hear New Jersey’s case, it is worth…
On January 5, at the Massachusetts Gaming Commission’s first meeting of 2017, the Commission posed a series of questions related to the Commission’s promulgation of regulations governing “table game” rules. As resort casinos edge closer to opening their doors to patrons, the Commission is working to establish processes to review…
On Election Day, Massachusetts residents said “yes, please” to marijuana, but “no, thank you” to an additional fruit machine in the Commonwealth. Ballot Question 1 would have expanded the Commonwealth’s Gaming Act to allow the Massachusetts Gaming Commission to license another slots parlor, but was rejected with 61% voting against…
Tribal gaming may have endured a setback, but perhaps not a complete elimination in the Massachusetts gaming arena. When a U.S. District Court judge determined the federal government erred in approving the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s reservation in Taunton, the Tribe’s First Light Casino plans waned – temporarily. Last week, Judge…
Caesars Entertainment Operating Co. Inc. (“Caesars”) appeared in bankruptcy court for the third time this year to request that creditors be stayed from seeking an $11 billion dollar judgment against the casino operator’s nondebtor parent. The original stay was set to expire on August 29, 2016. Caesars hoped to convince…
Definitions and syntax. Not only on middle school quizzes, but also what determined the fate of the Mashpee Wampanoag and Cowlitz tribal casinos in Massachusetts and Washington, respectively. Two federal court decisions decided one day apart considered the definitions of “Indian” under the Indian Reorganization Act (“IRA”), a law that…