21st Century Tribal Sovereignty: Betting on the Future of Gambling
Among people unfamiliar with American Indian law, which is almost everyone, few have given consideration to the concept of tribal sovereignty. For the vast majority of Americans, tribes and the question of their legal status, like the often desperate conditions of poverty existing on most Indian reservations, have been out of sight and out of mind. Those few who have encountered the idea that native tribes in North America are sovereign nations are likely to have done so in the context of tribal gaming. Thanks to a United States Supreme Court decision reaffirming the sovereign status of tribes, and holding that…