The tribe’s campaign to open a slots parlor has been overshadowed by larger casino projects, but a marketing study commissioned by the tribe found it could earn close to $5 million a year from a casino equipped with 300 slot machines. The absence of such a demonstration, he wrote, meant “the tribe cannot build a gaming facility on” its land. Dennis Saylor IV ruled that the Aquinnah failed to demonstrate “sufficient actual manifestations” of government authority. But will it be dispositive? No, the case is for the appeals court to decide.” “It’s something the court would have to consider, whether to accept the brief’s argument,” he said. How much weight the appeals court will give to the government’s 36-page brief is hard to predict, said Dennis Whittlesey, a Washington, D.C., lawyer with more than 40 years of experience with Native American legal issues. He has asserted that the tribe wants to be treated the same as hundreds of other tribes that have opened casinos in the last 25 years. Tobias Vanderhoop, the tribal chairman, said on Monday “the tribe is pleased to have the support of the United States” and the brief “reaffirms our right to govern our ancestral tribal lands.”
“The same arguments have been considered before and rejected,” he said Monday.
