Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Pala Ventures Into Online Gaming

Couple of Articles on Pala's online Poker Venture:

The Dirty Stack, Pala Interactive’s Hope, Regulation of Online Poker

Posted by Peter McCullough on July 10, 2013 in Gambler's Report, Online Gambling News, Online Poker News

Pala Interactive, LLC based in California is a relatively new online poker collaboration between former bwin.party CEO Jim Ryan and the Pala Band of Mission Indians. The Pala Indian tribe is behind San Diego’s premier casino, the Pala Casino Resort Spa.

As with any new venture, the start up needs a face to help promote the brand. That face belongs to none other than professional poker player, Phil Ivey. Ivey is not new to being the face behind a poker room startup, back in 2004, Ivey was one of the most popular players backing resurrected poker room Full Tilt Poker.

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE - The Dirty Stack, Pala Interactive’s Hope, Regulation of Online Poker

Another Article:

Phil Ivey to Join California Indian Tribe in Online Gaming Venture

By Steve Larson - Legaluspokersites.com

Rumors surfaced this week that the so-called “Tiger Woods of poker,” Phil Ivey, has made an agreement with a southern California indian tribe to be the face of their Internet gaming venture.

Ivey is set to team up with the Pala Indian Tribe, which runs one of California’s most successful tribal casinos. The Pala Casino Resort and Spa is located just outside the city of San Diego. Also slated to participate in the new venture is Jim Ryan, formerly the chief executive officer of bwin.party.

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE - Phil Ivey to Join California Indian Tribe in Online Gaming Venture 

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Article on Tribal Member Disenrollments

This is an aticile published on mondaq.com titled Tribal Membership Revocations: Dialing For Dollars? written by Dennis Whittlesey and Patrick Sullivan.

The Article mentions Pala:

Pala Band of Mission Indians

 

The Pala Indian Reservation is in Southern California, and it houses the Pala Casino which opened in 2001. The casino has been immensely successful, to the point that each tribal member currently receives about $150,000 in per capita payments annually from gaming revenues, as well as housing subsidies, health care, and educational benefits. When the casino's revenues dropped in 2012, the Tribe's per capita payments dropped by $500 per month, and the membership grew disenchanted with the decline in each member's income. The drop in revenue resulted in financial pressure on members who relied on the payments, with the result that a long-simmering membership dispute flared into open hostility and ultimately a massive disenrollment revoking the membership of one-sixth of the Tribe's population.

The Tribe's membership rules require at least 1/16 Pala ancestry. Such "blood quantum" membership rules necessarily lead to an evershrinking tribal membership as members frequently marry outside the tribe. The dispute centered on a single woman named Margarita Britten, who is an ancestor of all of the disenrolled members. The Pala Executive Committee determined on its own that Britten's father was white and not Pala, meaning that all members tracing their Pala ancestry solely to Britten as a great-great-grandparent went from 1/16 to 1/32 Pala blood and no longer qualified for membership. With that decision, more than 160 Pala members were disenrolled, an action that cut off per capita payments, as well as access to health care and all other tribal benefits. Tensions continue to run high on the reservation, with the disenrolled claiming the decision was made solely to prop up per capita payments, while members not affected respond that the disenrollment was an overdue resolution of a preexisting problem.

As for appeals, the Pala leadership took care of that by terminating what might have been a venue for the ousted members to seek judicial relief. In California, tribes may voluntarily settle disputes in the Intertribal Court of Southern California, a tribal "circuit court" providing a neutral forum for appeals of tribal decisions. The Pala Executive Committee voted to withdraw from that court before enacting the disenrollments, so the decision was never subject to review in that court.

The Pala enrollment case was closed before it even was ripe for hearing in that court.

Read Full Article Here at Mondaq.com Tribal Membership Revocations: Dialing For Dollars?