Mass. gambling bill allows Indian casino

BOSTON – The latest piece of legislation making its way through the Massachusetts legislature having to do with gambling casinos seems to open the door to much more than what is explicitly called for in the bill, namely two resort casinos and slot machines at four racing tracks, according to the Cape Cod Times.
Specifically, while prohibiting expansion of casinos for 15 years after the legislation becomes law, the bill allows the state to work with federally recognized Indian tribes to build more casinos.
While still in committee, the Times reports that the bill appears to be on “the fast track,” given that in the current economic climate the gambling facilities are expected to generate up to 15,000 jobs and as much as $1.7 billion a year in revenue.
The Mashpee Wampanoag tribe has indicated an interest in obtaining land in Middleboro and Mashpee, Mass., for the purposes of building a casino, but the February 2009 ruling in the U.S. Supreme Court against the Narragansett Indian Tribe makes that possibility more remote. In the ruling, the court said that tribes that were not recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs by 1934 would not be allowed to take land into federal trust, an action that would remove the land from state jurisdiction and thus allow the building of a casino without state interference.
Since the Mashpee Wampanoags were not recognized by the federal government until 2007, it is unlikely they will be able to build a casino, unless legislation is passed that overturns the Supreme Court ruling.
The effort to bring resort casinos to Massachusetts enjoys public support, according to a poll conducted about a year ago by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, with support specifically for locating one of the casinos on New Bedford’s waterfront.