Federal Reversal Puts Alaska Tribal Casinos in Legal Jeopardy
Posted on: October 1, 2025, 05:30h.
Last updated on: October 1, 2025, 05:30h.
- Interior reversal jeopardizes Alaska tribal casino projects’ future.
- Eklutna gaming hall stays open despite new legal opinion.
- Tlingit & Haida vows sovereignty after setback in Juneau.
The US Interior Department last week quietly reversed a Biden administration legal opinion that allowed Alaska tribes to open casino-style gaming halls on Native allotment lands.
The new opinion throws several tribal casino projects into uncertainty, including the Native Village of Eklutna’s Chin’an Gaming Hall near Anchorage, which is already open.
In a memo dated September 25, Deputy Interior Secretary Kate MacGregor wrote that a solicitor’s opinion issued under the prior administration did “not reflect the best interpretation of applicable law” and ordered the department and the National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC) to reevaluate decisions made under that analysis.
Alaska’s Different Legal Status
The Eklutna tribe has been trying to get a modest bingo hall off the ground for years but was frustrated by laws that confer a different legal status on Alaska tribes than that of tribes in the rest of the US.
The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) allows federally recognized tribes in the “Lower 48” to run class II gaming operations, like electronic bingo halls, on their own lands without state approval, as long as comparable forms of gambling are permitted within that state.
But the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), enacted before IGRA, restructured Alaska’s tribes into state-chartered corporations, effectively narrowing their status as sovereign governments, which impacts their right to offer gaming.
The Biden administration changed that. A November 2022 DOI legal opinion determined that ANCSA didn’t prohibit the federal government from taking land into trust for Alaska Natives. This paved the way for the federal National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC) to approve the casino.
Since the policy rested on a legal opinion, rather than legislation passed by Congress, the Trump administration was able to rescind it with relative ease — a move Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) had urged.
Potentially Devastating
The reversal could be devastating — not just for the Eklutna but also for the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes who have also begun construction on a bingo hall near Juneau.
Tlingit & Haida said in a statement that it was reviewing the new opinion but remained “committed to exercising our Tribal sovereignty to preserve sovereignty, enhance economic and cultural resources and promote self-sufficiency and self-governance for Tribal citizens.”
Aaron Leggett, President of the Native Village of Eklutna, said that its tribal gaming hall “remains open for our guests and continues to provide meaningful benefits to our Tribe, the surrounding community, and our state.”
Former Interior solicitor Bob Anderson, who issued the Biden-era opinion and now lives in Anchorage, told KNBA News that the new opinion was “wrong.”
“It’s been the law in the Lower 48 forever, and Alaska is part of the United States, and the same federal laws apply here, as they do everywhere else,” Anderson said. “So, I’m fairly confident that we’ll continue to prevail on these questions.”
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