PHOENIX — A tribe has filed suit trying to halt Arizona’s off-reservation wagering on sports two weeks before it is scheduled to begin.
The lawsuit filed by the Yavapai-Prescott Indian Tribe contends state lawmakers have no right to permit sports franchises to start taking wagers on professional and collegiate games. That’s because Arizonans went to the polls in 2002 and voted to confine certain types of gaming to reservations, says attorney for the tribe Luis Ochoa.
And there is no doubt about voter intent, Ochoa said, because another ballot measure the same year — to permit off-reservation gaming — was defeated, with 80% of the votes cast against it.
Ochoa does not dispute that other tribes have signed new agreements with the state to permit such off-reservation gaming starting next month. In exchange, these tribes got the right not only to accept similar sports bets at their gaming facilities, but to expand the number and types of Class III games — things like poker and slot machines — they can offer in their casinos.
But he said that still doesn’t get around the 2002 measure, which he said is subject to the Voter Protection Act. That constitutional provision allows lawmakers to alter what is approved at the ballot only if the change “furthers the purpose’’ of the original law.
The change in this case “is directly repugnant to and inconsistent with the intent” of the 2002 proposition approved by voters, Ochoa said in his court filings.
He also argues the change amounts to unconstitutional discrimination against Native American tribes, because the new gaming rules are much more favorable to the sports franchises than to the tribes.
There was no comment from Gov. Doug Ducey, who is named as defendant in the lawsuit filed Thursday in Maricopa County. Ducey negotiated what he called the “modernized gaming compacts’’ with the tribes that went along with the off-reservation gaming deal approved by the Legislature earlier this year.
The lawsuit did draw an angry reaction from state Sen. T.J. Shope, R-Coolidge, who sponsored one of the versions of the law Ducey signed on April 15.
He pointed out that the lawsuit was filed not when the measure was signed but now, after applications have been accepted to operate the new sports gaming operations and with actual wagering supposed to start on Sept. 9, just ahead of the Arizona Cardinals’ first regular season game.
“The timing of these challenges, at the dawn of selection rather than during the legislative session or upon the bill’s enactment, amount to an end-around run on that qualifications-based awarding process at the Department of Gaming,’’ Shope said in a prepared statement. “I expect any legal challenges to be quickly dismissed so that the economic opportunities already happening as a result of (the) tribal-state gaming compact amendment can continue to materialize.’’
The first legal test will be this coming Friday: Maricopa County Superior Court Judge James Smith has scheduled an emergency hearing on Ochoa’s request to put an immediate halt to any new gaming until the legal issues are resolved.
State stands to gain $100M a year
Arizona has had some form of tribal gaming since the 1990s.
In 2002, a coalition of tribes crafted an initiative to give them the exclusive right to operate casino-style games in exchange for giving the state a share of the profits. By definition, that limited such gaming to reservations.
The plan approved by the legislature earlier this allows not only wagering at sports facilities like the Cardinals stadium on all professional and college games, but also the ability for the private gaming companies with whom the teams have to associate to offer online wagering.
The deal is set up so the state gets a share of gaming revenues, a figure that could exceed $100 million a year.
In exchange, the state agreed to ink new gaming deals with tribes, giving them similar rights to offer wagering on sports. The tribes also get to install more of the slot machines and poker tables they already had, as well as the ability to offer games like craps, roulette and baccarat they previously weren’t allowed.
New deal unfair, tribe says
Ochoa, on behalf of the Yavapai-Prescott Tribe, says the deal is illegal, not only because of the 2002 initiative but because it also is unfair.
There are only 20 sports gaming licenses being awarded.
Half, he noted, go to existing sports franchises. And given there are more licenses than franchises, that means every franchise that wants one gets one.
But with at least 21 tribes in the state, Ochoa said, that gives any one of them less than a 50% chance of landing one of the lucrative franchises.
And there is no chance of the Yavapai-Prescott Tribe getting one, because the deal applies only to those tribes that agreed to the new gaming compacts. Ochoa said the tribe was “excluded from all negotiations’’ on that deal and has not agreed to sign it, as doing so would remove its rights under the exclusive gaming rights settled in 2002.
Moreover, Ochoa said, anyone wanting a franchise has to pay a non-refundable $100,000 application fee “despite the stark differences in likelihood of obtaining a license.’’
All that, he said, amounts to illegal special legislation.
Beyond that, he said the disparate treatment of sports franchises and the tribe “discriminates between race and origin.’’
