Pojoaque still fighting state over gaming pact

Pojoaque Pueblo maintains it lost nearly $9 million in revenue because state government took action against vendors doing business with the pueblo’s casinos during a protracted legal fight over Pojoaque’s gambling compact with the state.

Starting as an old compact expired in 2015, the pueblo fought in court against signing a new agreement providing the state with an increased share of slot machine revenues.

While proceedings in that dispute continued, the pueblo filed another court action that said vendors — like gambling machine suppliers — received letters from the state threatening penalties if the vendors continued to work with Pojoaque. The state maintained the pueblo was operating casinos illegally without a compact.

In February 2017, a federal judge sided with the administration of Gov. Susana Martinez and ruled that the state could in fact go after the vendors for doing business with Pojoaque’s gambling operations because federal Indian gaming law requires a compact with the state.

At that point, “the Pueblo’s revenue declined precipitously,” says a court filing in Pojoaque’s latest court battle with state government.

“This caused vendors to cease certain business with the Pueblo, including pulling the most profitable gaming machines off the Pueblo’s gaming floor, causing the Pueblo to incur direct and consequential losses in net revenue approximating $8.84 million.”

In August 2017, Pojoaque finally signed the same state gaming compact that other tribes had previously agreed to.

The capitulation came after a federal appeals court refused to reconsider its earlier ruling that Pojoaque had to negotiate a new compact with the state instead of with the federal government.

The new compact increased the state’s share of “net win” from tribal slots from 8 percent to 9 percent, with higher rates over the next two decades. Pojoaque also had wanted to lower its minimum age for gambling, and lift restrictions that ban serving alcohol in gambling areas and prohibit cashing paryoll, Social Security and welfare checks at its casinos.

Pojoaque and the state now continue to fight over another issue involving big bucks — what should happen to money that the pueblo deposited in a trust account over two years in lieu of providing the state with a share of slot machine revenue while the compact dispute was resolved in court.

In 2015, then-U.S. Attorney Damon Martinez agreed to allow Pojoaque to continue its gaming operations without a compact while the litigation played out, on condition that the pueblo set aside the slot revenue it would have paid to the state under the old compact that expired that year.

In March, the federal government seized the accumulated trust money — $10.1 million.

Those dollars are “proceeds of illegal gambling” that took place between the expiration of the old compact in 2015 and the pueblo signing a new one in 2017, said the forfeiture complaint filed by current U.S. Attorney John Anderson.

Pojoaque says the money should be distributed for the pueblo to use for the general welfare of its people and to promote economic development — a position that, if upheld, would mean that Pojoaque essentially achieved a two-year pass on making revenue-sharing payments to the state during the compact litigation.

The Martinez administration, the winner so far in the series of court fights with Pojoaque, has steadfastly argued that Pojoaque wants “to play by a different set of rules than other New Mexico tribes.”