A top official for the U.S. Department of the Interior has revoked a legal opinion that formed part of the legal basis for two new casino-like tribal gaming halls in Alaska, putting their future in question.
On Thursday, Deputy Secretary Kate MacGregor declared that she had overruled the opinion, which was issued during the Biden administration and challenged in court by the state of Alaska.
Writing in a memo to the head of the National Indian Gaming Commission and the top attorney at the Interior Department, MacGregor said that the Biden-era opinion “does not reflect the best interpretation of applicable law.”
The opinion overruled by MacGregor applied only to Alaska and declared that tribal authority applied under many circumstances to land allotments that were given to individual Alaska Natives by the federal government.
