The Seneca Nation of Indians of New York have asked the Department of the Interior to review an arbitration decision it lost in a dispute with the state over shared casino revenues. At stake is $225 million that the state claims the tribe owes it since 2016 when the tribe stopped payments.
An arbitration panel last week ruled that the tribal state gaming compact requires the tribe, which operates three Class III casinos in Niagara Falls, Buffalo and Salamanca, to continue to pay 25 percent of its slots revenue to the state. The tribe contends that the 2002 compact required it to do so until after the 14th year, but not after. The panel disagreed.
However, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act allows a tribe to ask the Department to review the panel’s ruling. Seneca Nation President Rickey Armstrong Sr. declared “The arbitration panel’s members, instead of interpreting the clear language of the nation-state compact, took it upon themselves to effectively and materially amend the agreed-upon terms of the compact, and they did so without regard for federal law and required procedures that govern both the compact and the amendment process.”
He added, “To allow this amendment to take effect without review by the Department of Interior would undermine the process by which the federal government carries out its trust responsibility to the Seneca Nation, and other sovereign Nations across the country.”
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo criticized the tribe for not abiding by the ruling. “They had said they would honor the arbitration decision, and they signed a contract saying they would honor the arbitration decision,” he said last week. “What does that mean? Apparently not much.”
The contract Cuomo refers to is the section of the 2002 compact that says that arbitration decisions, “shall be final.”
The tribe says it has paid $1 billion in revenue sharing since 2002.
