Mohegan Sun Casino & Hotel in Connecticut. Photo: Ritu Manoj Jethani/Shutterstock.com

The casino wars flared anew in Connecticut Wednesday after gambling behemoth MGM, backed by attorneys at Covington & Burling, accused the Department of the Interior of illegally allowing American Indian tribes to set up casinos on nontribal lands. 

The lawsuit filed in federal court in the District of Columbia say amendments approved by the DOI and Bureau of Indian Affairs to allow tribes to set up commercial gambling establishments off-reservation are a violation of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.

The two federally recognized tribes in Connecticut already operate casinos on their reservations: the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe’s Foxwoods Casino and the Mohegan Tribe’s Mohegan Sun. Those are the only two casinos in the state.

But Connecticut officials and the BIA have crafted new regulations to existing law that will allow a wholly owned commercial Indian casino to be set up in East Windsor. There are also plans to build one in Bridgeport, where MGM is already planning its own casino complex.

The amendments “have the stated purpose of facilitating off-reservation, commercial gaming operated by a joint venture wholly owned by Indian tribes,” the complaint said, and “therefore circumvent IGRA’s land-in-trust process, which governs off-reservation gaming, and allow Connecticut’s federally-recognized Indian tribes to leverage their duopoly over tribal gaming to obtain a monopoly over commercial gaming in Connecticut.”

It’s not just the East Windsor casino that has MGM worried. 

The amendments “facilitate commercial, off-reservation gaming by the tribal joint venture anywhere in Connecticut, and state legislators have recently proposed granting the joint venture an exclusive, no-bid license to operate a casino in Bridgeport,” it said.

“The amendments thus confer a statewide, perpetual competitive advantage on the joint venture,” said the complaint filed on behalf of Nevada-based MGM Resorts Global Development and its subsidiary Blue Tarp reDevelopment, which operates the MGM Springfield casino. 

The complaint was filed by a team of attorneys that include Kevin King, Edward Rippey, Thomas Brugato and Neil Roman of Covington in D.C. 

In a statement, MGM spokesman Brian Ahern said allowing the deal to go through would not only allow the tribes an unlawful monopoly, but “also stand in the way of an open, competitive process that MGM believes would result in a better deal for the people of Connecticut.

“An open process would allow the state to evaluate competing proposals and choose the operator that offers the best investment opportunity, creates the most new jobs and economic expansion, and maximizes revenue to the state.” 

“Our lawsuit is about advancing a fair process that complies with federal law, which we have advocated consistently,” the statement said. ”We continue to believe the people of Connecticut deserve better.”

The amendments and tribal venture has already spurred litigation, with Connecticut suing DOI and former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in D.C. federal court in 2017 after he failed to approve the amendments allowing the new casinos.

Connecticut voluntarily dropped that lawsuit in March after Judge Rudolph Contreras allowed the state to amend its complaint to include arguments that Zinke had been swayed by political pressure to scotch the plan. Zinke resigned in December.

MGM’s complaint said the acting secretary, David Bernhardt, has no authority to approve amendments to the IGRA not contemplated by Congress when it enacted the legislation in 1988 to address issues “in Indian lands alone.” 

Citing a prior case, the complaints said, “Everything—literally everything—in IGRA affords tools … to regulate gaming on Indian lands, and nowhere else.”