California court quashes tribal appeal over online bingo site
Lipay nation appeal rejected as bets were placed off tribal land, exempting them from legal protection
A California tribe has lost a court appeal over whether its online bingo site violated the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA).
Three judges at the California ninth circuit court of appeals upheld an earlier decision to close the Lipay Nation of Santa Ysabel’s Desert Rose online bingo site, as bets were placed off the California tribe’s land and thus exempting them from the protection of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA).
Judge Bea stated that the assessment of the case centred on the question: “Does the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, 25 U.S.C. § 2701, et seq., permit an Indian tribe to offer online gaming to patrons located off Indian lands in jurisdictions where gambling is illegal?”
In December 2016, California district court judge Anthony Bataglia ruled that Santa Ysabel Interactive, Gaming Commission of Santa Ysabel and Lipay Nation had contravened UIGEA when they began offering online bingo games via the Desert Rose online bingo site in 2014.
Following the ruling, the tribe shut down the online bingo site. However, in March 2018, the Lipay tribe launched an appeal against the prior ruling, asking the circuit court to overturn the decision.
The panel asserted that even though IGRA protected the Lipay tribe’s right to offer online bingo through their site, allowing players from jurisdictions where online gambling was illegal to make bets or wagers through this site violated the UIGEA.
In addition to asserting the authority of the earlier ruling, the three-member panel also stated that even if the entirety of “the ‘gaming activity’ associated with Desert Rose Bingo occurs on Indian lands, the patrons’ act of placing wagers over the internet while located in a jurisdiction where those wagers is illegal makes Iipay’s decision to accept financial payments associated with those bets or wagers a violation of UIGEA.”
The Lipay Nation of Santa Ysabel established Santa Ysabel Interactive as its own egaming company and previously operated an online poker site, Private Table, which opened in 2014, under Class II gaming laws contained in IGRA. This site has since been shut down.
No comment has been made by the tribe since the loss of their appeal.