Oklahoma tribes and Attorney General face compacts stalemate
Negotiations between Oklahoma’s Attorney General and 35 tribal nations began on Monday and today remain in a stalemate over the automatic renewal of gaming compacts, AP News reports.
The tribal nations are unified in their stance that the contracts will automatically renew after 1 January if new terms cannot be reached.
The state’s current gambling compacts require tribes to pay between 4% and 10% of a casino’s net revenue as exclusivity fees; these give the tribes exclusive rights to operate casinos in Oklahoma.
From those fees, the state received payments totalling $139m last year.
Without a compact in place, Oklahoma tribes would not be authorised to offer many casino games, including poker, blackjack and electronic slot machine-style games.
Attorney General Mike Hunter described the two-hour, closed-door meeting on Monday as a good opportunity to outline the state’s position.
He said: “The way forward is to come up with a process that resolves the dispute, getting that resolved, getting it in a trajectory where it is no longer a barrier to looking at ways to modify the compact in a way that benefits the tribes and the state mutually and cooperatively.”
Matthew Morgan, Chairman of the Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association, said there was a “major dispute” over the renewal language and tribal leaders would take their time to assess discussions so far.
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