Betting, adoption lawsuits pose greatest threat to tribes in decades, experts say

A lawsuit in Washington state and another before the US Supreme Court are part of a coordinated campaign that experts say is pushing once-fringe legal theories to the nation’s highest court and presenting the most serious challenge to tribal sovereignty in more than 50 years.

Maverick Gaming, which operates 19 card rooms in Washington and casinos in Nevada and Colorado, is challenging a 2020 law that allows sports betting only on tribal lands. The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Washington state, alleges that the law created a “discriminatory monopoly on tribal gaming.”

But it goes further, arguing that gaming agreements between Washington state and the tribes are based on race and therefore unconstitutionally discriminate against people who operate non-tribal casinos. This argument takes aim at the inherent right of tribal states to govern themselves and at centuries of American law recognizing the political equivalence of tribal governments alongside their counterparts at the state and federal levels.

Advocates and legal experts say Maverick and others like it threaten to return to the politics of the termination era of the 1950s, when the US government sought to end the political status of Indigenous tribes forever.

The most prominent case, which was argued before the US Supreme Court in November, centers on the right of Native American families to have preference over non-Native families in Native child adoption settings.

As in the Maverick case, the plaintiffs in Bracken v. Haaland demand…