Online Gambling Legal For Indian Tribes?

Apparently some legal analysis is already starting to trickle down with the theory that online gambling conducted by Indian Tribes on reservation land may be legal.  The theory to my knowledge has not been tested in the court of law.  Of course, there is also the issue if they are referring to State Law or Federal Law.  In the article below it seems Owens is only referring to State Law.  There is also the issue of Federal Law and the transfer of money across State and International Borders.

Just to review briefly Iipay Tribe of Santa Ysabel has decided to move forward with their online poker site called privatetable.com which appears to already be operating.

In The News:

pokerupdate.com PrivateTable.com Poker Site Deemed Legal

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Despite the large debates surrounding the launch of PrivateTable.com, the site has been backed by several leading legal gambling authorities who believe that the site is operating completely within state law. Comments from attorney Martin Owens suggest that the site has done nothing to breach gambling laws and marks a step forward into bringing in some regulated gambling practices across the state.
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The issues were swept aside by Owens, who made a statement declaring that “If an Indian tribe has land of its own and wants to offer Class 2 gambling, they don’t have to consult state law at all.” A Class 2 license allows native tribes to operate basic gambling services such as poker on their lands and the Santa Ysabel nation currently holds a Class 3 license, giving them full rights to operate banked gaming services.


Read More Here --> pokerupdate.com PrivateTable.com Poker Site Deemed Legal


***WARNING***

Chairman Robert Smith, Chairman of the Pala Band of Mission Indians, Pala Band of Luiseno Indians, Pala Band of Luiseno Mission Indians of the Pala Reservation, is monitoring your comments.  He is going to track your IP address and "take action" against any tribal member posting comments he does not like.

Pala Interactive In the News

This is a long article but worth the read.  I will post a small excerpt here.  Please click the link and read the whole article if this interests you.

4flush.com - Santa Ysabel Gambit Complicates California Online Poker Scene

by Haley Hintze on July 15, 2014

Excerpt:

It’s interesting to note, however, that lawyers for the Pechanga-led coalition now trying to push through SB1366 and AB2291 did a flip-flop on this very same issue within the past three years, just in time to craft a favorable viewpoint favoring their tribal-only legislative efforts.  These same tribes declared a few years that online poker couldn’t be regulated via state-level compact because it was Class II, not Class III, then simply switched their collective interpretation when popular support for the regulation of California online poker began to grow.

If it sounds like hypocrisy, well, it is.

There’s also the question of some of these news reports quickly slapping a “rogue” label on the Santa Ysabels while utterly ignoring some of the other already established business connections.  The Pala tribe, one of the major components of the Pechanga-led faction, has already created a new entity called Pala Interactive, in which it partners with former Excapsa (UltimateBet) CEO James Ryan.  Pala Interactive also has some shared rights to the extant UB software, which means that years after UB itself failed amid scandal and tens of millions of dollars of internal theft and fraud, the old UB software could reemerge again, via Pala Interactive.

One could also note that the Pala tribe itself is also mired in major legal controversy over the forced disenfranchising of hundreds of former tribal members, many of whom are political opponents of the group currently in power.  The net effect is to distribute the massive proceeds from the Palas’ profitable gaming operations to a smaller group of official tribal members.

It’s hard to look at the sum of what the Pala nation would bring to online poker, and not toss in the word “rogue” somewhere.  Even if it doesn’t have quite the same meaning.

Read Full Article Here--> 4flush.com - Santa Ysabel Gambit Complicates California Online Poker Scene

***WARNING***

Chairman Robert Smith, Chairman of the Pala Band of Mission Indians, Pala Band of Luiseno Indians, Pala Band of Luiseno Mission Indians of the Pala Reservation, is monitoring your comments.  He is going to track your IP address and "take action" against any tribal member posting comments he does not like.

Santa Ysabel Moving Forward With Online Poker

parttimepoker.com - Santa Ysabel Tribe in California Launches Online Poker Site PrivateTable.com

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Why is this significant

The significance is two-fold. First, the obvious significance is for players in California as they may have a new, more trustworthy place to play.

For the rest of us, the significance lies in the precedent being set. Other tribes across the U.S will be watching what Santa Ysabel does with PrivateTable.com and will make decisions based on the results. Other tribes have, and absolutely still are, weighing the possibility of operating a Class II online poker site under their sovereign rights. Santa Ysabel is uniquely position to call out ‘first’ on this one for two key reasons:

•They don’t have much to lose. Santa Ysabel closed their land-based casino in February. If they are proven to be wrong regarding the legality of operating an online poker site as a tribe, they have no significant underlying business that can be harmed.

•They are in California, considered to be the gold mine for online gaming due to population and demographics. There is actual money to be made.

Read More Here -->parttimepoker.com - Santa Ysabel Tribe in California Launches Online Poker Site PrivateTable.com

Much More:

Santa Ysabel Interactive PrivateTable.com

4flush.com - Santa Ysabel Gambit Complicates California Online Poker Scene
by Haley Hintze on July 15, 2014

This week’s announcement by the cash-strapped Santa Ysabel tribal nation of an imminent rollout of real-money online poker for Californians, despite no formal state regulation, has added an interesting new twist to the neverending saga of the attempts to introduce and regulate the online game in the Golden State.  Whether or not the Santa Ysabels — also known as the Iipay Nation — move forward with their plans remains to be seen.

What’s for sure, however, is that an already-tipsy legislative apple cart in California’s state capital of Sacramento now has another element in play.  Regardless of the Santa Ysabels nation’s small financial size, the question now posed is a doozy: Do United States-based tribal nations even need federal or state approval to offer online poker, if they’ve already been cleared via the Department of the Interior to offer gambling on their own tribal lands?

Read More Here-->4flush.com - Santa Ysabel Gambit Complicates California Online Poker Scene

4flush.com - Online Poker Site Launched in California by Stand-Alone Tribe

onlinepokerreport.com - Bill or No Bill, Santa Ysabel Tribe To Push Forward With Online Poker in California

casino.org - California Tribe Claims Sovereignty, Launches Online Poker Site