Case: 3:25-cv-00698-wmc Document #: 56-1 Filed: 01/06/26 Page 8 of 13
their tribal lands) would be completely undermined if IGRA, despite flatly prohibiting unauthorized class III gaming, had no mechanism to allow a tribe to prevent illegal non-tribal class III gaming operations from siphoning revenue or bringing in organized crime. Id. § 2710(d)(1). Thus, this Court should avoid any interpretation that precludes tribes from enjoining illegal class III gaming. New York State Dep’t of Soc. Svcs. V. Dublino , 413 U.S. 405, 419–20 (1973) (“We cannot interpret federal statutes to negate their own stated purposes.”). II. Defendants’ Class III Gaming Activity is Prohibited on Ho-Chunk’s Tribal Lands. IGRA provides that class III gaming activities, including sports betting, that occur on Indian lands “shall be lawful” only if they are conducted in conformance with a tribal-state compact and tribal gaming ordinances. 25 U.S.C. § 2710(d)(1); see 25 C.F.R. § 502.4(c). Here, Defendants’ sports-betting contracts are unlawful because they comply with neither requirement: they are conducted on the Nation’s tribal lands without authorization by either the Compact or the Nation’s tribal gaming ordinances. The Nation, therefore, has the right to enjoin Defendants’ activity. A. Defendants’ Sports-Betting Activities Takes Place on the Nation’s Indian Lands. Defendants attempt to argue that IGRA is irrelevant to their sports betting activities because their online activities do not take place on the Nation’s Indian lands as defined by IGRA. 5 See ECF No. 29, at *14–16; ECF No. 32, at *11–12. This is flatly wrong. As an initial matter, operating over the internet does not allow Defendants to supersede or evade ordinary
5 IGRA defines “Indian Lands” as: “all lands within the limits of any Indian reservation” and “any lands title to which is either held in trust by the United States for the benefit of any Indian tribe ….” 25 U.S.C. § 2703(4). All the Nation’s lands upon which it conducts gaming activities is owned by the United States in trust for the Nation.
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