PA. GAMBLING Casino plan would take time and money

Indians would have a difficult battle to get a casino in Pennsylvania.
HARRISBURG (AP) -- Anyone putting money on Pennsylvania's gambling future should shy away from betting that an Indian casino will land here anytime soon, analysts say.
With Gov. Ed Rendell's opposition, analysts agree that a quest by the Delaware Tribe of Indians of Bartlesville, Okla., and the Delaware Nation of Anadarko, Okla., to open a casino in Pennsylvania could be forced down a very long and costly road.
The question of Indian-run gambling in Pennsylvania has been left hanging while the Legislature considers authorizing slot machines as a way to subsidize education and lower individual property taxes.
Gambling opponents have warned that expanding gambling to slot machines would, under federal law, open the door to a casino by the Delawares, who announced an intention in May to claim 315 acres in Northampton County, among other sites.
The state senator who represents that district, Robert C. Wonderling -- also an opponent of the slots bill in the Legislature -- said he is taking the land claim very seriously.
"What gives me pause for consideration, and quite frankly I think all of us need to be placed on our guard, is that these casinos have been successful in land claims elsewhere in the United States," Wonderling said.
For now, there is no precedent for a tribe based in one state to win a land claim in a second state and build a casino there, analysts say.
Negotiation
The quickest way to a gambling hall for the Delawares would be to skip pursuing a land claim in court and instead negotiate a compact with Pennsylvania, a process allowed under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988. That route was closed when Rendell said he would not negotiate.
"The chances of an Indian casino in Pennsylvania is about the same as you or me to win the World Series of Poker two years in a row," said I. Nelson Rose, a gambling law specialist and professor at Whittier Law School in California. "It's possible, but it isn't going to happen."
Winning a land claim could take years -- if not a decade or more -- and often involves seeking the federal government's help in suing a state that opposes the casino, analysts say. The tribes would have to prove that land was once tribally owned and that it was transferred without federal approval, making it an illegal transfer.
A public-relations consultant representing the tribes said they are waiting to see what the Legislature does about slot machines before filing a land claim.
If the tribes win the land claim in court, they could force an exchange of the parcel in question for unoccupied land elsewhere to avoid dispossessing residents or businesses, as they say their ancestors were dispossessed more than two centuries ago.