Two gamblers in two separate federal lawsuits are challenging the concept of tribal sovereignty as it applies to whether patrons of Indian casinos have any recourse to the courts when they feel their rights have been violated.
Most casinos have policies relating to “advantage players,” those players who consistently do better than the average. In commercial casinos those players have recourse if they feel they have been mistreated. In tribal casinos, they rarely do since most courts say that tribal sovereignty trumps all.
One case is in Connecticut and the other in Arizona. Both involve players who were kicked out because they used card counting and other methods for leveling the playing field, but which are not illegal.
But as Stanford Wong, who edits a newsletter about gaming, warns his readers, “In a tribal casino, there’s no recourse whatsoever. You can’t sue them in regular court. The odds are all stacked against you.”
In the Connecticut lawsuit three Chinese nationals have sued Foxwoods, claiming that in 2011 the casino seized $1.1 million in winnings as well as $1.6 million they had deposited as front money. The players used a method whereby they memorized imperfections on the back sides of cards to keep track of the denominations.
A tribal gaming commission ruled against them. The gamblers filed in federal court, only to have the case dismissed. They are considering an appeal.
In Arizona, the so-called “advantage players,” sued the Mazatzal Casino and the Tonto Apache Tribe after they were held on suspicion of cheating. In this case, unlike Connecticut, a federal judge rule that the casino was not protected by sovereign immunity because the officials were not sued as tribal officials, but as individuals.
One of the players, told the Las Vegas Sun, “I simply had won more money than they liked, so they kidnapped me, handcuffed me, forced me into an isolated back room in the casino and physically stole whatever money they could out of my pocket.”
Whether players can sue a tribal casino depends on the tribal state gaming compact. Some states have traded tribal immunity for a larger share of gaming profits.
Advantage players argue that when word gets out that they have beaten the system that it actually helps the casinos in question because more players show up.
The National Indian Gaming Commission asserts that tribal gaming commissions operate independently.
