The U.S. Department of the Interior rejected the Sault St. Marie Tribe’s $245 million casino development plan in Lansing, Michigan. The Lansing casino would have contained 3,000 slot machines, 48 gaming tables, and 1,500 permanent staff members.
The Sault St. Marie Tribe purchased the land in downtown Lansing from the city council in 2012. The DOI refused to place the land in trust, a necessary step for tribe to build a casino on the land. The DOI’s leaders said the purchase of the land violated the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act.
Aaron Payment, chairperson of the Sault St. Marie Tribe, said his group has not given up hope of building a casino on the parcel of land. He said, “We have no intention of giving up, and will soon determine which option, legal, administrative, or legislative, we will pursue to continue our fight for our legal rights.”
Lansing Casino’s Important to Sault St. Marie Tribe
Payment stated, despite the Interior Department’s interpretation of the law, that his tribe is following the proper federally-mandated laws and procedures. Payment added, “Our tribe is within federal law and our legal rights to pursue these opportunities to create thousands of new jobs and generate millions of dollars in new revenues that will enhance our tribal land base.”
Under the 1934 law, tribes who buy new land and take that land into trust must demostrate that the new land will “consolidate or enhance tribal lands”.
After rendering its decision, the DOI said it believed the Sault St. Marie Tribe lacked clear evidence that would show the Lansing parcels would either consolidate or enhance tribal lands.
James Cason on Enhancement
James Cason, the Associate Deputy Secretary of the DOI, said in a statement, “The tribe’s headquarters is approximately 260 miles from the Lansing parcels. The tribe has not offered any evidence of its plans to use the gaming revenue to benfit its existing lands or its members.”
Associate Deputy Secretary Cason focused on “enhancement” in his ruling, because the Lansing real estate could not be construed as a consolidating act. Citing the Indian Act, Cason added, “The tribe has failed to meet its burden of demonstrating that its acquisition of the parcels would effect an ‘enhancement’ of tribal lands as necessary to trigger the mandatory land-into-trust provision.”
DOI Approval for Connecticut Casino
Follow-up questions were asked about the DOI’s recent approval for an East Windsor casino in Connecticut. The East Windsor casino in the Hartford metropolitan area lies about 60 miles from the casinos the Mashantucket Pequot (Foxwoods) Tribe and Mohegan Tribe respectively own: Foxwoods Casino and Mohegan Sun.
Because the land in East Windsor does not consolidate the two tribes’ previous lands, they had to show that the new casino would enhance the tribal lands — or, in the wider view, the common good.
The tribes argued that the satellite casino would help the state of Connecticut, because it would keep the gambling action of Connecticut residents from flowing out of the state. MGM Resorts International is building the $950 million MGM Springfield about 30 miles from Hartford, so it was feared Hartford-area gamblers might drive out of state to wager.
Maintaining “Sovereignty and Economic Standards”
Both tribes also face massive debts — each tribe is thought to have over $2 billion in debts. Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods once were among the biggest and most lucrative casinos in the world — Mohegan Sun recently was voted the number one casino in America — but they funded vast expansions in 2007 and 2008. When the Global Recession hit, both found themselves facing mounting debts with less traffic to their casino sites. With New York and Massachusetts building land-based casinos since then, market fragmentation has led to fewer revenues for those casinos.
Thus, the Mohegan Tribe and Mashantucket Pequot Tribe showed the U.S. Department of the Interior the third casino would enhance the tribes’ viability, but stemming the flow of customers out of their venues. If the Sault St. Marie Tribe’s plan to develop a Lansing casino is to prove successful, the tribe will have to prove the new Lansing casino development is similarly crucial to the viability of their gaming enterprise. As James Cason put it, the new casino needs to show the DOI that the Lansing casino will help the Sault St. Marie Tribe maintains its “sovereignty and economic standards“.
