The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe of Massachusetts has regained the right to put 321 acres in Taunton into trust for its $1 billion First Light Resort & Casino.
The U.S. Department of the Interior December 23 announced its final ruling that the tribe has ancestral ties to the Taunton land and can put the land into trust as reservation land. This should clear roadblocks to the tribe’s long-sought casino financed by the Malaysia-based Genting Group.
The tribe can automatically operate a Class II casino but would need a tribal-state gaming compact to operate a Class III casino.
The Interior Department first took the land into trust during the Obama administration and the tribe announced plans for a casino on 151 acres in Taunton.
Opponents of the casino took their challenge to federal court, which ruled against the tribe. In March 2020 the Trump administration announced it was reversing the land into trust decision and removing the land from trust.
The latest decision reverses the Trump administration. In a letter to Mashpee Wampanoag Chairman Brian Weeden, the department, “confirms the 2015 decision to acquire the Parcels in trust as the Tribe’s reservation.”
