Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal upholds tribal online bingo shutdown

A panel of three judges in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld an earlier lower court decision that shuttered the Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel’s Desert Rose online bingo site, saying the operation violated the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act because bets were placed off the California tribal lands, and that it wasn’t shielded by the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.

The p[anel comprised Judges M. Margaret McKeown, Julio M. Fuentes and Carlos T. Bea.

Issuing the panel’s finding last week, Judge Bea said:

“This case presents an issue of first impression: Does the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, 25 U.S.C. § 2701, et seq., permit an Indian tribe to offer online gaming to patrons located off Indian lands in jurisdictions where gambling is illegal?

“Because we conclude that the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, 31 U.S.C. § 5361, et seq., bars the activity at issue in this case, we affirm the district court’s order granting summary judgment to the State of California and the United States.”

The Iipay Nation had asked the circuit court to overturn a California district judge’s ruling that the tribe’s Desert Rose Bingo site didn’t comply with federal law.

The judges found that the San Diego-based tribe’s online enterprise violated the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, affirming that the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act protected gaming activity conducted on Indian lands, but the patrons’ act of placing a bet or wager on a game of Desert Rose Casino while located in California (ie off tribal lands), violated the UIGEA, and was not protected by the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.

The panel went further, ruling that even if all of the “gaming activity” associated with Desert Rose Casino occurred on Indian lands, the patrons’ act of placing bets or wagers over the internet while located in a jurisdiction where those bets or wagers were illegal made Iipay Nation’s decision to accept financial payments associated with those bets or wagers a violation of the UIGEA.

http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2018/08/02/17-55150.pdf