Just a day after the Eklutna Tribe’s casino opened to the public near Anchorage, the state of Alaska filed a lawsuit against the federal government, that if successful, could shut it down
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. It claims federal agencies misused their legal authority to allow the gaming operation to go forward.
The lawsuit hasn’t affected the gaming hall’s operations yet. The Native Village of Eklutna’s president, Aaron Leggett, says the tribe will stand up to the legal challenge, because it knows its case is strong.
The tribe faces another lawsuit from a group of property owners, who say the gaming hall will impact their neighborhood.
Despite all the challenges, and there have been many along the way, gambling has come to Chugiak, a community just a short drive from Anchorage, off the North Birchwood exit on the Glenn Highway.
If it weren’t for the large electronic sign that says, Chin’an Gaming Hall, you might miss it. It doesn’t look like what you’d expect for a gambling oasis. It’s a modular building, meant to be temporary.
A security guard is posted at door to check IDs to gain entry to a large room with wall-to-wall electronic gambling machines. There are 85 of them. There could be up to 700 more, if the tribe pursues its plans to build a permanent gaming hall.
The room is warm and snug and smells like brand-new carpet. If there are windows, you don’t see them. It’s a universe unto itself, with fantasy-themed display screens bearing names like Wolf Run Gold and Triple Fortune Dragon Unleashed.
There are cushy cranberry-red, leather chairs to sit in, as well as a place to buy snacks and soft drinks. No alcohol will be served in the temporary hall. The tribe may apply for a state alcohol beverage license, if it opens a permanent facility. But that decision hasn’t been made yet.
Ryan Walker manages the gaming hall for the tribe. He says these machines not only have the same names as those that are popular in Las Vegas casinos but are designed to have their look and feel.
“Games in Vegas are what you call Class 3 machines,” Walker said, “and Class 3 machines are based on a random number generator, embedded in the machine itself.
The Birchwood gaming hall has Class 2 bingo machines, with flashy, electronic bingo cards. The top pay-out is typically $8,000. It is possible to win up to $40,000 on machines set for progressive pay-outs, but Walker says the chance of winning such a jackpot nwould be extremely rare.
Walker has a lot of experience managing gaming halls in Southern Nevada and California, but says this one stands out.
“Certainly, I’ve been involved in expedited projects,” he said, “but this is, by far, the quickest one.”
The Chin’an Gaming Hall is made up of trailers that were bolted together in just 4-and-a-half days, immediately after the tribe got its final OK from the Bureau of Indian Affairs last month.
But Aaron Leggett, president of the Native Village of Eklutna, says the project has been years in the making. He called the opening a historic day for the tribe.
“Finally the Native Village of Eklutna is able to participate in the economic growth of our city,” Leggett said.
There were decades of legal battles to get to this point. The building sits on a Native allotment that a year ago did not have the necessary Indian Country status to allow gambling. But last year, the U.S. Interior Department changed its Alaska policies, and the tribe got final approval from Bryan Newland, the outgoing assistant secretary of Indian Affairs, just days before the Trump administration took over.
Opponents of the project say the tribe rushed to open, to prevent Trump from reversing federal approvals.
But Leggett says there were other more pressing reasons to push ahead – mainly to recoup the costs as quickly as possible, and that includes mounting legal bills.
“What development in Alaska doesn’t have critics?” Leggett said. “Tell me one development in Alaska that doesn’t have critics.”
Leggett says the tribe will do it’s best to prove those critics wrong by being a good neighbor and making safety of the area a top priority.
He points to an independent economic analysis conducted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which estimates the gaming operation has the potential to generate $67 million in new economic activity for the Anchorage area. He says most of the workers so far are tribal members or from the local community. The study estimates that the gaming hall could eventually create hundreds of jobs, once the new permanent facility is built.
Leggett says “Chin’an” means thank you in the Dena’ina Athabascan language, and the gaming hall is a dream come true for the tribe.
He said it’s important to remember that what today makes up the municipality of Anchorage, once belonged to the Eklutna people, which have never truly been able to benefit from the city’s growth until now. Leggett’s connection to the land on which the gaming hall stands today is very personal. He says his great grandfather homesteaded it in 1928.
“We watched the neighborhood grow. The only thing that existed here before that, was, the Alaska Railroad, by a few years, not by too many,” he said, “so as far as being the neighbors, we’re the original neighbor.”
Some of its neighbors support the project, while others have taken their protests to the Birchwood Community Council.
Debbie Ossiander, the council’s co-chair, says there is widespread unhappiness about the short comment period for the BIA’s environmental assessment of the development. Although the deadline has passed, Ossiander says the council still plans to submit a response, along with a formal request to the Anchorage mayor and assembly to do more to address the potential tax burden.
Ossiander says neighbors are worried about the tribe’s tax-exempt status, even though it has offered to pay for some of the increased costs of city services that may arise from the gaming hall. Ossiander says these costs need to be tracked.
“We evaluated that. We appreciate it, but we are hoping, and asking the assembly, to make it a point to accurately assess those costs,” she said.
For the tribe, there’s the cost of not going forward – of not having a new stream of income to fund its programs and improve the lives of its members.
But the gaming hall is a gamble for the tribe, which has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to get to this far, possibly more. It has not disclosed its investment in the project.
The state’s lawsuit argues that the tribe doesn’t have jurisdiction over tribal lands or Native allotments owned by its members.
“This challenge isn’t about gaming,” Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor said in a statement. “This is about the jurisdiction over lands.”
Taylor says the state is asking the courts to reaffirm that jurisdiction over Native allotments.
In a statement, Leggett said the governor and his attorney general have asked for a court order that could cause enormous damage to the tribe and the community.
He said, “I am disappointed for my people and my ancestors, who have worked diligently for generations to get to this moment.”
