A “fix” to a 2009 US Supreme Court ruling limiting the US Department of Interior’s ability to place land in trust for American Indian tribes was adopted Thursday by a US House subcommittee and included in an appropriations bill.

Rhode Island’s Narragansett Tribe may be facing an uphill legal battle in its attempts to gain approval to set up a federally recognized Indian reservation following a potentially landmark legal challenge launched by state officials. In a recent hearing, the US Supreme Court subjected the tribe’s land proposal to a round of sceptical questioning in a critical case being closely watched throughout Indian Country.

A small Long Island tribe is close to winning key federal recognition, a move that could open up the possibility of a major Indian casino on the outskirts of New York City.

The Mashpee Wampanoag tribe is scrambling to keep alive its dreams of opening a new Foxwoods-style gambling resort in Massachusetts in the wake of a potentially devastating US Supreme Court decision.

The Obama Administration may be forced to bypass Congress and issue a “regulatory fix” to a controversial court decision that barred dozens of tribes from acquiring reservation land for casinos and other economic development projects, a top federal official says.

The ambitions of dozens of Indian tribes have been severely constrained by a new Supreme Court ruling that could restrict the US federal government’s scope to permit tribes to set up casinos away from their traditional lands. The fallout from the landmark decision will provide an early test for the Obama administration’s Native American credentials, but experts predict it could even see tribal gaming heavyweights forced to defend themselves against a raft of further litigation seeking closure of already established venues.

Influential members of a key US Senate committee have hinted that any congressional ‘fix’ to amend a recent Supreme Court decision could exclude redress for Indian gaming tribes looking to establish casinos away from the traditional reservations.

Rhode Island officials have fired the opening legal salvos in a landmark US Supreme Court case challenging a federal decision to allow a local Indian tribe to convert land holdings into sovereign territory for a casino. The challenge by Rhode Island state leaders has drawn support from other US states and may have far-reaching implications for the Indian gaming sector.

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.

The long-running debate in Massachusetts over expanded gambling could get reshaped with the reemergence of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe as a credible potential casino developer.