Ione Band of Miwok’s Sacramento-Area Casino on Track After 18-Year Battle

• Acorn Ridge Casino to open in spring 2026
• Ione Band won decades-long legal battle to build casino

After more than 18 years of legal battles, the Ione Band of Miwok Indians is on track to open its Acorn Ridge Casino near Sacramento, Calif., in the spring of 2026, The Sacramento Business Journal reports.

The tribe is laying the foundations of what will soon be a 60K-square-foot “boutique” casino on 228 acres of tribal trust land in Plymouth, Amador County, marking the last leg of a long journey toward economic self-sufficiency.

The project is financed with a $110 million construction loan from Gaming and Leisure Properties Inc., a real estate investment trust formed as a corporate spin-off of Penn Entertainment. Las Vegas-based Warner Gaming is a development partner on the project.

Rooted in Struggle

The tribe’s journey to establish a casino has been long and complex. The Ione Band has existed as a distinct tribal community in Amador County since at least the mid-1800s, when the California Gold Rush brought thousands of settlers into Native lands.

Many Miwok villages were destroyed, and survivors either fled or were forcibly removed. The Ione Band was displaced from its ancestral land, and survivors began living in makeshift camps, often working as laborers on local ranches.

In 2023, the federal government placed 228 acres of land into trust for the tribe – a process that partially removes land from state jurisdiction and grants a tribe greater autonomy to make decisions about taxation, development, land management, and gaming.

Opponents including local governments, residents, and competitors in the tribal gaming market filed lawsuits challenging the decision.

They cited a February 2009 US Supreme Court decision (Carcieri v. Salazar), which held that only tribes who were “under federal jurisdiction” at the time of the enactment of the Indian Reorganization Act (1934) could have land placed into trust.

Project Advances

The courts determined that the Ione Band had ongoing interactions with the federal government dating back to the mid-1800s, including land acquisition efforts and legal actions, which their status as being under federal jurisdiction in 1934.

In 2017, a Ninth Circuit ruling affirmed that the Ione Band qualified as a restored tribe and met IRA requirements. The land-into-trust decision was upheld.

In April 2024, the US Supreme Court declined to hear a final challenge to the tribe’s ambitions, paving the way for it to build a casino on its land.

Ione Band Chairperson Sara Dutschke told the Business Journal that this wasn’t just about building a casino. It was “about restoring land and creating economic opportunities for our people.”