STATE COURT RULES KENO ILLEGAL; SETBACK SEEN FOR INDIAN CASINOS.Byline: Bob Egelko Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. The state Supreme Court ruled the state lottery's keno game illegal Monday and dealt a setback to the effort by California's American Indian American Indian or Native American or Amerindian or indigenous American Any member of the various aboriginal peoples of the Western Hemisphere, with the exception of the Eskimos (Inuit) and the Aleuts. tribes to expand legal gambling on reservations. Ruling unanimously in a suit by thoroughbred horse Thoroughbred horse, breed of light horse more properly known as the English running horse. As its name implies, it was the first pedigreed, or "thoroughbred" horse. trainers and a pachinko pa·chin·ko n. A Japanese gambling game played on a vertical pinball machine. [Japanese.] Noun 1. parlor company, the court said keno is not a lottery but a ``banked game'' pitting each player against the house, a category unauthorized by the 1984 lottery initiative. The lottery announced immediate discontinuation dis·con·tin·u·a·tion n. A cessation; a discontinuance. Noun 1. discontinuation - the act of discontinuing or breaking off; an interruption (temporary or permanent) discontinuance of keno, which was projected to bring in $383 million in bets in the fiscal year that ends Sunday, one-sixth of all lottery bets. Half the money is returned in prizes, one-third goes to schools and the remaining sixth is for administration. The lottery said it had planned next year's budget without the keno money. ``It validates what the voters did in 1984 when they chartered a lottery, not a surrogate for the casinos in Las Vegas Las Vegas (läs vā`gəs), city (1990 pop. 258,295), seat of Clark co., S Nev.; inc. 1911. It is the largest city in Nevada and the center of one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the United States. ,'' said Robert Forgnone, lawyer for the California Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association. The ruling could be a bigger blow to the American Indian tribes. Many of the state's financially distressed tribes depend heavily on casinos for money. Tribal casinos, mainly in the Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, desert, have installed 12,100 electronic slot machines, according to estimates by the state Attorney General's Office, which considers the slots illegal. The tribes would like to add other lucrative Las Vegas-style electronic games but the state has refused to approve them. Federal law allows tribes to offer any type of gambling that is permitted elsewhere in their state. Lawyers for American Indian tribes argued that keno was authorized by the state lottery A game of chance operated by a state government. Generally a lottery offers a person the chance to win a prize in exchange for something of lesser value. Most lotteries offer a large cash prize, and the chance to win the cash prize is typically available for one dollar. law and was both a banked game and a slot machine, defined legally as a device that gives a prize completely by chance. The court said the lottery cannot use keno or other banked games, meaning that the tribes can't use them either. Whether the ruling has any effect on slot machines was a subject of sharp dispute. ``By any definition, slot machines are banked games,'' Attorney General Dan Lungren, the leading foe of expanded reservation gambling, said at a news conference. ``This ruling brings an end to the question of whether or not these slot machines are allowed in any form in California and removes the final arguments slot machine proponents can make.'' State authorities are barred from enforcing their gambling laws on American Indian reservations. But Lungren said it was time for federal prosecutors to crack down. U.S. Attorney Alan Bersin of San Diego, whose district includes most of the casinos, has delayed enforcement until state and federal court cases are resolved. |
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