Casino poker: legal or not?

Cd'A Tribe pursues plans despite legal questions

COEUR d'ALENE - The Coeur d'Alene Tribe proceeded with plans to add poker at its Worley casino even after the state of Idaho said the Tribe would be breaking state law, the terms of its 1992 gaming compact with the state, and violating federal regulations.

Nearly a year has passed since the Tribe's attorney, William Roden, first notified the Idaho Lottery Commission the casino would be adding poker. The Coeur d'Alene Casino Poker Room is slated to open this spring.

Idaho Lottery Commission Director Jeffrey Anderson responded to the Tribe in May 2013, saying he had discussed the issue with Gov. Butch Otter's office and determined that poker at the casino would violate the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988.

The federal act established the National Indian Gaming Commission to regulate and oversee Indian gaming.

Anderson forwarded his correspondence with the Tribe to the National Indian Gaming Commission as well as the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Neither returned calls Friday seeking comment.

The state and the Tribe disagree on the legality of poker, as evidenced in internal email communications by the Lottery Commission and the casino.

In an internal office email, the deputy director of the Idaho Lottery Enforcement Division said poker is clearly illegal under Idaho law.

"They are correct in stating that games are happening all over the state, but that still does not make it legal," Deputy Director Amber French wrote on April 24, 2013. "There are illegal drug transactions that occur every day, but because they were not busted does this mean it is legal? No."

She continued: "They would definitely lose this if they took this argument to the Idaho Supreme Court."

Three months later, Coeur d'Alene Casino CEO Dave Matheson expressed confidence that the Tribe would move forward with its plans.

"I'm mostly sure we'll make it happen," Matheson wrote in a July 11, 2013, email to casino employee Will Lake. "There's no way in hell they can say its (sic) prohibited if its (sic) played almost universally while they look the other way."

The Tribe maintains that poker games at the casino would not be "house-banked" and that neither the dealer nor the casino "would have an interest, financial or otherwise, in the outcome of any poker game."

Helo Hancock, the Tribe's legislative director, described poker as another amenity the Tribe could offer to stay competitive with casinos in Washington that allow poker.

Hancock said the Tribe considers poker, as it will be played at the casino, as Class II gambling under federal regulations and not subject to state oversight or the state gaming compact.

"We have not received anything from the U.S. Attorney's Office or the NIGC to tell us we're incorrect in our opinion," Hancock said.

The Tribe views the state's approval of instant video gaming machines at licensed Idaho horse-race tracks as a nod to expanding casino gaming.

"The state's pretty clear in their desire to the see the expansion of casino gaming in passing that historical horse racing gaming at the Greyhound Park," Hancock said. "The exact location the Tribe was told we couldn't have casino gaming is now going to have casino gaming."

In the late 1990s, the Tribe attempted to purchase the Greyhound Park in Post Falls - located on land the Tribe considers indigenous - and put it into the reservation trust. That effort was thwarted politically.

Now the state has allowed the owners of the Greyhound Park to have historic horse racing gaming machines - classified by some anti-gaming groups as hybrid slot machines.

Hancock has compared the casino's proposed "player-versus-player" games as similar to the pari-mutuel betting on those machines.

So far, no other Idaho tribes have contacted the Idaho Lottery Commission about adding poker at tribal casinos, according to Anderson.