The California Assembly ratified four of five long-stalled gaming compacts last month after the Agua Caliente, Morongo, Pechanga and Sycuan tribes compromised with lawmakers in agreeing to allow state auditing of slot revenues that the gamers will be sharing with the state for the first time.

The state Senate approved the pacts in April, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed all four. amended gaming compacts that will give four tribes 17,000 more slot machines, up from 8,000 now. They take effect January 1—if the U.S. Interior Department approves them and perhaps their accompanying “memorandum of agreements,” also accepted by lawmakers and the governor. Already, labor groups and others are drawing a bead on shooting down the side agreement with a popular vote or onsite tests of casinos’ pledges not to interfere with organizing.

The MOA, a side agreement that supposedly holds the tribes to maintaining minimum internal control standards, providing the state with financial audits, and other requirements, are unprecedented, some tribal gaming-law experts say. Veteran California tribal attorney Howard Dickstein says Interior may find “the MOAs are effectively a nullity, and the legislature just got snookered.”

By Casino Connection Staff

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