As California's budget crisis drags on, the need for additional revenues continues to fuel debate over the merits of an intra-state online poker network. Meanwhile, a recent federal Court of Appeals ruling could impact revenue sharing agreements between California tribes and the state.

The California Senate yesterday approved legislation that would prohibit Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger from negotiating gambling deals with Indian tribes that do not have federally recognized land on which the casinos would be located.

The State of California will appeal a federal ruling limiting their ability to demand payments from a native Indian tribe in exchange for allowing the tribe to add slot machines at its casino.

Although most Californians think the recent approval of gaming compacts for four tribes in San Diego and Riverside counties is a major victory for "the Indians," in a real sense the February 5 referendums may prove to have been a Pyrrhic victory.

As Indian gaming tribes continue to increase their economic and political power in the coming years, they will come to be perceived more as corporations rather than sovereign political entities, but they could encounter labor issues as a result, write leading Indian gaming attorneys Michael Anderson and Lorinda Mall of AndersonTuell.

A legal war between tribes and Arnold Schwarzenegger over the governor’s demands that tribes fork over millions of dollars for reworking casino deals California agreed to in 1999 is intensifying following the state’s failure to block a draw for more than 10,000 new slots licences taking place today.

Overturning Bush-era rules on off-reservation casinos and ensuring fairness in tribal-state compact negotiations should take top priority in President Obama’s nascent tribal gaming policy, experts suggest.

Eleven California tribes have been awarded licences for 3,548 new slot machines in a major victory for tribes that complained they were unjustly barred from expanding under casino deals the state agreed to in 1999, but many more licenses went unclaimed.

Citing a refusal to be shaken down by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to pay for new casino deals, some Indian tribes are challenging a state-imposed limit on the number of slot machine licences allowed in California. Their challenge could overturn the longstanding machine limit in the state.

A court battle in California to overturn the state’s slot machine limits has ended in victory for the tribes who opposed the administration’s restrictive reading of their 1999 compacts.