Judge OKs Full Gambling for 3 Arizona Tribes

PHOENIX —  A judge handed three Arizona Indian tribes a victory Monday in their dispute with the state over reservation gambling, allowing them to operate thousands of electronic gaming machines, plus some table games.

Former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank X. Gordon, appointed by a federal judge in December to mediate the dispute, chose gaming compacts submitted by the Tohono O’odham, White Mountain Apache and Pascua Yaqui tribes.

The compacts would allow the Tohono O’odham tribe to operate 2,600 electronic gaming machines plus keno games and tables for poker, blackjack and craps. The White Mountain Apaches and Pascua Yaquis would each be allowed to operate 1,800 machines plus poker, blackjack and keno.

Indian leaders praised the ruling, but Gov. Fife Symington and state Senate Majority Leader Tom Patterson expressed disappointment.

“The mediator’s decision opens the door for full-scale Las Vegas-type casino gambling in Arizona,” Symington said through a spokesman.

But Gordon said the state, while trying to limit Indian gaming, operates a state lottery and allows parimutuel betting at horse and dog tracks.

“Arizona has long since passed the time when it prohibited gambling,” he said.

The state had offered compacts similar to those signed earlier with the Yavapai-Prescott, Ft. McDowell, Ak-Chin and Cocopah tribes, each of which was allowed 250 machines but no poker, blackjack, craps or keno.

Each of those compacts includes provisions that would allow the tribes to expand their operations to match the best deal given any other tribe. That means each would be allowed up to 2,600 machines as soon as the Tohono O’odham agreement is approved by the federal Interior Department, said Jack Moortel, Symington’s chief Indian gambling negotiator.

Gordon said he was swayed not only by legal arguments, but also by economic conditions on the three reservations.

“For whatever reasons, neither the state nor the federal government has furnished adequate revenue to provide for the needs of these tribes in areas of health, education, economic development or governmental infrastructure,” he said.