Although many lower courts affirmed the tribal view in early cases, the matter was not finally resolved until 1987 when the U.S. The debate centered on the issue of whether tribal governments possessed the authority to conduct gaming independently of state regulation. By the mid-1980s, a number of states had authorized charitable gaming, and some states were sponsoring state-operated lotteries.Īlthough government-sponsored gaming was an issue of mutual interest, tribal and state governments soon found themselves at odds over tribal gaming. At about that same time, a number of state governments were also exploring the potential for increasing state revenues through state-sponsored gaming. Tribal gaming, as we think of it today, dates back to the 1970s when a number of Indian tribes established bingo operations as a means of raising revenue to fund tribal government operations.
