Two Native American Tribes in California have been given the go ahead to build land based casinos on land that is not on their reservations. There is a federal law that disallows Native American to build casinos on their land if the reservation came into trust after Act 17th, 1988. Tribes, who's tribal land that was taken into trust before that date, are allowed to build casinos on their land without special approval from the government. So, how did this come about? Both the tribes future casino sites are located many miles away from their reservation and are much closer to urban areas in the state. Federal lawmakers or officials stated that the communities would not be harmed in anyway and the two tribes would economically benefit from the ventures.What does this mean to future Native American casinos or rather, future projects that other tribes may present to law makers which would not fall on their reservations? Doug Elmets speaks for six California tribes that already have casinos and had this to say It's a horrible, flawed policy that is now going to allow tribes to build casinos away from their aboriginal territory simply for economic gain and probably more importantly, it opens the floodgates of urban gaming throughout California, if not the nation. The Secretary of Interior is allowed to make an exception in these types of cases. Where the proposed project is in the best financial interest of the tribe and at the same time will not hurt the surrounding community. California Gov. Jerry Brown has the proposals before him and has one year to make a decision to accept them or not.
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