by Ernest L. Stevens, Jr.
Internet and mobile gaming – in particular online sports betting – has been the fastest-growing aspect of the national gaming market since the Supreme Court’s 2018 Murphy decision, which struck down the federal prohibition against sports betting. Since 2018, thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia have legalized sports betting within their borders, and a handful of states are actively considering legislation to legalize sports betting. Twenty-nine of these states and the District of Columbia have also approved online sports betting in their jurisdictions.
The Indian gaming industry is likewise evolving to address this changing landscape. The conversation and analysis about sports betting’s impact on Indian gaming will continue at our Annual Tradeshow and Convention in Anaheim, April 8-11.
Since 2018, dozens of tribal governments have added sports betting as an offering at their brick-and-mortar operations. Tribal governments have taken different approaches to mobile gaming. Some tribes are participating in state-run models outside of IGRA. Others are working through the compacting process to implement either geo-fenced mobile gaming or negotiating a jurisdictional arrangement to permit the tribe to accept online wagers that originate off-reservation, but are deemed accepted where the server is located on Indian lands.
The question of whether tribes can accept online sports wagers from throughout a state has been an ongoing legal and regulatory debate. Tribal governments are leading this discussion, empowered in part by IGRA and the compacts that tribes have carefully negotiated over the past three and half decades.
Opponents and competitors of Indian gaming argue that IGRA restricts Indian gaming entirely to Indian lands. They essentially argue that IGRA froze Indian gaming in place in 1988, when the internet was relatively unknown and not publicly…
