The federal Department of the Interior has giving its blessings to changes in the tribal state gaming compact that were agreed to by Arizona Governor Doug Ducey and the state’s gaming tribes, most particularly the Tohono O’odham Nation. The nation now has the go ahead to build a Class III casino near Glendale, a suburb of Phoenix.
All Class III gaming compacts require the assent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is part of the Interior Department.
It already has a Class II casino there, a mile from the University of Phoenix Stadium, the $400 million Desert Diamond Casino, that opened about 19 months ago, but which wasn’t nearly the kind of casino resort the tribe has worked for over the years. Arizona and other gaming tribes in the state fought the Tohonos’ efforts to build in the Phoenix Valley, something both the rival tribes and the state claimed it had promised not to do in 2002 when the state’s voters first legalized Las Vegas style gaming in the Grand Canyon state.
The final legal battle ended a few months ago when Ducey agreed to certify the tribe’s Class III permits, something the state had been able to successfully hold up. In return, the nation dropped its lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the state and agreed to limit itself to the one casino it has in Maricopa County—at least until 2041 when the new compacts expire.
The tribe will build a new, expanded casino near the current site, which will transition into a warehouse. The new casino resort, which will be about 1 million square feet total, will house the Class III slots and table games once the building is completed in 2019. The won’t be added before then because the existing building doesn’t have the space. They will replace the 1,089 Class II machines that are essentially electronically linked bingo-based games.
The next casino is expected to be 75,000 SF larger than the original and could also have 50 table games, 25 poker tables and a bingo hall with seating for 1,000. Five restaurants will probably be added, as well, and several retail stores. A hotel with a spa and 600 rooms and a 3-acre atrium, convention and retail space are also part of the plans.
The tribe got the $30 million to buy the land in Glendale from a federal land settlement that was awarded by Congress in the 1980s to compensate the tribe, whose 10,000-acre reservation was inundated by a federal dam project.
Under the terms of that settlement the tribe was able to buy land in Maricopa, Pinal, and Pima counties. Opponents of the tribe claim that during the 2002 campaign to legalize Indian gaming in Arizona they promised not to try to build a casino near the Phoenix metro area—but then almost immediately secretly began looking for land in that area. In 2009, they asked to put the land into trust—an action that led to a flurry of legal challenges over the intervening eight years. Federal courts held that, no matter what assurances the tribe had given in private or public, the compact didn’t prevent it from building in Glendale.
The tribe operates three other Desert Diamond casinos in Arizona, including two with Las Vegas style slots and table games.
The tribe was able to defeat all comers in the courts about a dozen times— up until the last court battle with Ducey—which ended with the settlement.
