Alaska Tribe Clears Land in Anchorage for State’s Second Casino

Posted on: October 3, 2024, 04:56h. 

Last updated on: October 4, 2024, 09:14h.

Philip Conneller @casinoorgphilc Read More

Expertise: Gaming Business, Regulation, Tribal Gaming.

Alaska’s Eklutna Tribe has begun clearing land for what it hopes will become Alaska’s second casino, The Anchorage Daily News reports.

The tribe has long sought to build an electronic bingo hall on its land 20 miles outside of Anchorage. But, for years, it’s been hamstrung by Alaska laws that limited the sovereignty – and, by extension, gaming rights — of indigenous people.

Now the tribe hopes to benefit from a February 2024 DOJ opinion that granted more authority for Alaska Natives over their lands.

Modest Facility  

In May, the federal National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC) approved the Eklutna’s casino plan, a reversal of its position under the Trump administration. Now the tribe is waiting for signoff from the US Interior Department’s Bureau of Indian Affairs.

We have started clearing a small amount of land on our proposed project site, however there are still hurdles before us in our decades-long journey to open a potential gaming hall,” Aaron Leggett, president of the Native Village of Eklutna, told The Morning Post of the planned “modest” gaming facility. “We want to work with all stakeholders to make this potential facility a positive project in every possible way.”

Anthony Marnell, CEO of Las Vegas-based casino development firm Marnell Companies, the tribe’s partner on the project, said the casino would open with 350 to 500 class II gaming machines, but could expand over time, eventually hosting as many as 700 machines.

Sovereignty Diminished

Alaska Natives like the Eklutna have a different legal status to their counterparts in other parts of the US. That’s largely because of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) of 1971.

The Act awarded the tribes land and financial compensation while also recharacterizing them as private corporations as opposed to sovereign nations with sovereign powers.

Under 1988’s Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), a tribe must exercise governmental authority over its land to have gaming rights there, and the federal government’s previous position was that the Eklutna did not.  

Alaska’s only existing electronic bingo hall is owned by the Metlakatla Indian Community, which declined to sign on to ANCSA.

Game-Changer

This all changed when US Interior Department Solicitor Robert Anderson determined that tribal authority should apply to land allotted to Alaska Natives provided it was not “geographically removed from the tribal community.”

Leggett says he hopes to hear from the Bureau of Indian Affairs by December.

“As a small tribe, we have struggled for decades to develop a strong tribal economy to help support our people and be an even more supportive community partner,” he said. “Our proposed gaming facility presents an important opportunity to reach these goals.”