Oklahoma Attorney General Says United Keetoowah Band Gaming Compact Invalid
Posted on: June 24, 2025, 12:44h.
Last updated on: June 24, 2025, 09:14h.
- Oklahoma’s top legal advisor says a tribal gaming compact is invalid
- The United Keetoowah Band is seeking to resume gaming operations
- The UKB sent the federal government a Class III gaming compact in April
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond says the Class III gaming compact the United Keetoowah Band (UKB) of Cherokee Indians signed and sent to the United States Department of the Interior for federal approval is invalid.
In April, the UKB completed and signed Oklahoma’s Model Tribal Gaming Compact, a revenue-sharing and regulatory agreement between the state and its federally recognized tribes wishing to operate slot machines and live-dealer table games on their sovereign reservations. The Model Tribal Gaming Compact was authorized by state voters through a 2024 referendum and made available to all federally recognized tribes in Oklahoma to engage in Class III gaming.
However, Part 15 of the Model Tribal Gaming Compact — Duration and Negotiation — states that tribes must execute the contract with the state and federal government before Jan. 1, 2020. Tribes that did so — 35 to be exact — have their Model Tribal Gaming Compacts “automatically renew” for successive 15-year terms, though the governor can request to negotiate new terms.
UKB Compact DOA, AG Says
Asked by the UKB tribe to opine on its Model Tribal Gaming Compact, Drummond said the document isn’t legitimate because it was signed after Jan. 1, 2020.
“The April 29, 2025, execution of Oklahoma’s statutory model gaming compact by the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma did not create a valid agreement between the State of Oklahoma and the UKB. The Model Compact term expired on January 1, 2020. Additionally, the renewal provision provided in the Model Compact under the State-Tribal Gaming Act has no effect on the purported compact signed on April 29, 2025, because the UKB did not have a compact in effect as of January 1, 2020,” Drummond wrote.
The state’s attorney general says federally recognized tribes that didn’t take the state’s offer to enter into the Model Compact before 2020 must negotiate individual compacts with the state, a process that begins with the Joint Committee on State-Tribal Relations.
“The UKB did not seek approval of the compact which the UKB signed on April 29, 2025, by the Joint Committee on State-Tribal Relations. Thus, the UKB has not entered a valid gaming compact with the State of Oklahoma,” Drummond concluded.
Cherokee Infighting
The UKB didn’t execute the Model Tribal Gaming Compact before 2020 because its federal status had long been in legal limbo. It was only in January when the Department of the Interior’s (DOI) Bureau of Indian Affairs ruled that the United Keetoowah are an equal successor to the Old Cherokee Nation as the Cherokee Nation.
The Cherokee Nation has long contended that it is the only successor to Old Cherokee, which occupied most of Oklahoma until the state was admitted to the union in 1907 and the tribe was disbanded. The UKB operated a Class II bingo hall called the Keetoowah Cherokee Casino in Tahlequah from 1986 until the Cherokee Nation successfully challenged whether the property was on federally designated trust land on claims that it was the rightful owner of the roughly two-acre site.
UKB Chief Jeff Wacoche scolded Drummond on allegations of being a shill for the much larger, more politically connected Cherokee Nation.
The fact that the attorney general would issue a legal opinion that (erroneously) addresses the UKB without government-to-government consultation speaks volumes regarding the curious political influence of the Cherokee Nation,” Wacoche said. “Were the shoe on the other foot, there would have been daily personal consultations.”
Chuck Hoskin Jr., chief of the Cherokee Nation, refuted Wacoche’s assertions.
“We know UKB will continue to misinterpret the law and misrepresent its own and the history of the Cherokee Nation. But the truth remains: the Cherokee Nation has sovereign authority and exclusive tribal jurisdiction over our 7,000 square-mile Reservation in Oklahoma,” Hoskin opined.
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