Archive for Sunday, January 30, 2005

Tribe turning back state’s efforts to inspect casino’s slot machines

The Associated Press

January 30, 2005

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Topeka — One of the two tribes proposing a $210 million casino and hotel near Kansas Speedway has not let state inspectors test slot machines at its northeast Kansas casino for more than a year, state officials said.

The state and the Sac and Fox tribe have launched separate arbitration proceedings to settle a dispute over the state's authority to test the tribe's slot machines at its Brown County casino, as well as other regulatory issues.

A 1995 compact between the tribe and the state grants the Kansas State Gaming Agency "free and unrestricted" monitoring of the casino's electronic gambling machines, while giving the tribe's in-house gaming commission day-to-day oversight.

State gaming agency records show the Sac and Fox Gaming Commission imposed new standards in 2002 that restrict the state's access to casino games and records. That led to a dispute between the two sides in the fall of 2003.

John McElroy, director of the state agency, said gaming agents have not in the past year inspected the casino's 470 slot machines to their satisfaction for "fair gambling practices" and other standards the state is allowed to enforce under the tribal pact.

For months, the two sides have traded proposals for a memorandum of understanding that would amend the compact to clarify each party's rights.

Testing of slots is the main hang-up, with the tribe proposing to allow state inspections -- but only for tests to which the tribe agrees -- while the state wants to be able to perform any tests it wants as long as it gives advance notice.

Those talks collapsed Nov. 29, when Sac and Fox chairwoman Sandra Keo sent a letter to state officials telling them that their position was "not acceptable."

The tribe requested arbitration to decide whether the state should be allowed to conduct tests on slot machines without advance approval from the tribe.

But lawyers in the Kansas Attorney General's Office said the state had initiated its own arbitration process months earlier and it still was active. The tribe has challenged that arbitration.

Keo said the impasse over the Brown County casino's slot machines has nothing to do with the proposal for the Wyandotte County development.

"One does not affect the other," Keo said.

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