Federal Government Blocks International Online Gamblers, Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes Sue

By: Ifrah Law

The Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes have filed suit against Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell after the Department Interior blocked their effort to offer real-money online gaming to international customers.

The Tribes were prepared to launch Pokertribes.com after coming to a revenue-sharing agreement with the state of Oklahoma.  Pursuant to the terms of the agreement, the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes were permitted to offer their online gaming to clients overseas, but were prohibited from offering gaming to clients in Oklahoma or elsewhere in the United States.  Under the compact, the tribe would pay the state 4 percent of the first $10 million in annual net revenue from electronic gaming, 5 percent of the next $10 million and 6 percent of any subsequent amount, plus a monthly 10 percent from non-house banked card games.

However, the Department of Interior Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs disapproved two versions of the plan, in August and November 2013 respectively, finding that the state of Oklahoma could not offer exclusive access to an international market and that therefore the state’s “concession is illusory” and it is not entitled to revenue sharing.  Notably, however, the Department of Interior explicitly declined to “reach the issue of whether internet gaming as contemplated in the Agreement was lawful,” restricting the basis of its opinion to the fact that “the State has not offered a meaningful concession” sufficient to justify sharing revenue from the online games.  Since the Department did not approve the agreement, Pokertribes.net is currently inactive.

The Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribe filed the complaint against the Department of Interior on December 26, 2013 alleging that its decision was arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, and otherwise contrary to law.  The tribe seeks declaratory and injunctive relief to prevent further obstruction of the website’s operation.  The case is currently pending before Judge Timothy D. DeGiusti in the Western District of Oklahoma.

Instead of trying to resolve this issue through litigation, we think the better path forward for the Tribes would be to use their political leverage to pass state legislation allowing the Tribes to offer intrastate online gaming to Oklahoma residents, as well as to players internationally.  If the Tribes were successful in getting this legislation passed, their authority to offer online gaming would be derived from state law rather than tribal compact and would therefore preclude federal involvement.  Offering gaming to Oklahoma residents as well as international customers would also resolve any concerns about the state’s allegedly illusory concessions.