Californian court puts tribal online bingo website on ice

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A Native American tribe’s attempt to launch an internet bingo website has faced setbacks following a recent court order temporarily restraining the site’s operation. In its decision, the Court made a number of important findings regarding the classification of online gaming services by such tribes. Heidi McNeil Staudenmaier and Anthony J. Carucci, of US law firm Snell & Wilmer offer a blow-by-blow account of the interlocutory legal proceedings and the next steps.

On 12 December 2014, Judge Anthony Battaglia of the US District Court for the Southern District of California granted the State of California’s (the ‘State’) motion for a temporary restraining order (‘TRO’) against the Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel Indian Tribe (the ‘Tribe’). The TRO restrains the Tribe from offering any gambling over the internet to persons not physically located on the Tribe’s Indian lands and from accepting any funds from persons wagering over the internet. The Court’s TRO comes just weeks after the Tribe became the first Indian tribe to offer ‘real money’ online gaming when it launched an internet bingo website in November 2014 using ‘proxy’ players (DesertRoseBingo.com).

Following the launch, the State promptly filed a lawsuit to shut down the Tribe’s online bingo operation, alleging (1) breach of the Tribe’s Tribal State Compact (the ‘Compact’) and (2) violation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (the ‘UIGEA’). The US filed its own suit for a permanent injunction in early December under the UIGEA. That lawsuit has been transferred to Judge Battaglia, but there has been no further activity to date.

Originally published in the World Online Gambling Law Report - January 2015.

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