Free Republic

After a mix-up at MGM National Harbor, one jackpot winner had to leave without her cash. Cynthia Obie won thousands on a slot machine at the Prince George’s County casino – but when the casino took down her Social Security number incorrectly, she lost it all. -snip Following regulations, before handing her the cash, MGM staff took her ID and personal information. But they misread her Social Security number by one digit. The person whose number they plugged into the database apparently owed the state of Maryland a lot of child support, and Obie’s winnings were immediately confiscated. “I’m like no all of my...

The chairman of the Miccosukee Tribe has been ousted because of his efforts to resolve a longstanding dispute with the federal government over an income-tax bill now totaling more than $1 billion. The tribe’s general council voted to remove Colley Billie, who has two years remaining in his second term, as he attempted to settle the nasty legal battle with the Internal Revenue Service and started to withhold taxes from casino gambling distributions to some 600 members — a step the IRS demanded in legal action. The council, consisting of members of the west Miami-Dade County tribe, voiced its discontent...

Boxer Resurrects Indian Tribe Deemed Defunct 40 Years Ago, Son Profits $8 Million Off It (p)It doesn't get more corrupt than this.... For the past 10 years Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) has been playing a game that would make Jack Abramoff blush, a game that can best be described using the language of “Get Smart’s” Maxwell Smart as “the ole family-profiting-off-of-the-Indian-tribe-that-you-created trick.” Here’s the story. In 1998, Lynn Woolsey introduced legislation reinstating an Indian tribe in the wine country of Northern California that had been declared defunct by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1958. None of the Indians of...

Casino gambling on American Indian reservations in Wisconsin will continue under a state Supreme Court decision released this morning. The court declined to curtail the Las Vegas-style gambling that is currently legal on land held by 11 tribes in Wisconsin. Those tribes operate 28 casinos. The widely anticipated ruling comes in the case of Dairyland Greyhound Park, a Kenosha dog track, which had argued that the Indian casinos were illegal because of a 1993 state constitutional amendment limiting gambling. That amendment clarifies that all types of gambling are prohibited in the state except bingo, raffles, pari-mutuel on-track betting and the...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Plymouth voters have recalled the mayor and two city council members who supported a pact with an Indian tribe that wants to build a casino in the gateway town to Sierra foothill wine country. It's the latest round in a long-running battle that has split the town, Amador County, and the tribe, and led to twin federal investigations of the regional office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Two-thirds of voters opted to recall Mayor Darlene Scanlon, who in addition to her casino support was pictured on the front page of the local Amador Ledger Dispatch newspaper...