Gambling Gear Seized in Raids Reservations

In the first action in an announced statewide crackdown on illegal gambling machines on Indian reservations, a task force of San Diego County law enforcement officials Wednesday seized nearly 300 slot-type devices from three tribal gambling halls.

Among the locations targeted in the simultaneous daylong raids was the vast gambling hall on the Sycuan Reservation near El Cajon, one of the most successful tribal casinos in the nation.

Tribal spokesmen immediately condemned the raids, which followed a directive issued earlier this month by state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren that called on law enforcement officials around California to take “appropriate action” against slot-type machines on reservations.

A statement by the small Sycuan band said the seizures were “in grave error” and complained that the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department had not first sought negotiations over the Indians’ use of 38 “pull-tab machines,” which play a fast-paced video version of a $1 paper game popular at bingo halls.

“The sheriff has chosen action over communication,” the Sycuan statement said.

Art Bunce, attorney for the Barona Band of Mission Indians, whose gambling hall near Ramona also was raided, said local law enforcement has no jurisdiction over gambling on Indian land, and that the seizures were illegal. “It’s solely a matter for the federal government,” Bunce said.

However, state law enforcement officials say they do have jurisdiction and that tribal attorneys are using such arguments to shield lucrative illegal gambling.

Also raided was the 6-week-old Viejas Casino & Turf Club in Alpine.

The raids were carried out by 90 officers from the Sheriff’s Department, the San Diego Police Department and the county district attorney’s office, according to sheriff’s spokesman Dan Greenblat. Two representatives of the Nevada Gaming Commission also took part to help trace machines manufactured in that state, he said.

The operation began about 8:30 a.m., and officers were still removing the heavy machines in the late afternoon, Greenblat said. “There were more than we expected,” he said. “We expected 240 . . . the last count was 280 and rising.”

Greenblat said he did not have a breakdown on how many machines were found at each location, but said they were worth about $705,000. He added that the devices may contain “as much as $162,000” in cash, “but we won’t know until we empty the machines.”

No one was arrested Wednesday and no charges have been filed stemming from the use of the machines, Greenblat said, adding that a decision will be forthcoming on arrests. An undercover investigation helped provide evidence that led to the raids, he said.

Lungren issued his statewide directive calling for the action amid disclosures that gambling promoters had installed slot-type devices at eight Indian bingo halls throughout California--on three of them just last month--despite a state prohibition against gambling machines.

Many local police and sheriff’s officials said they did not know what to do about the machines because of the patchwork of state and federal laws that govern the fast-growing, $1-billion Indian gambling industry.

“There was a lot of confusion in the law enforcement community,” Lungren spokesman Dave Puglia said Wednesday. “We simply clarified that.”

Puglia said police agencies in other counties will have to decide whether to follow San Diego’s lead in confiscating the machines on reservations that have them.

A 1988 federal law, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, cleared the way for tribes to use slot machines in some states, such as Nevada, where full casinos are legal. But where the machines are banned, such as in California, tribes are supposed to seek approval for them in “compacts” negotiated with the state.

Reservation officials, however, say they have been victimized by long delays in obtaining guidance on which forms of gambling are legal from the fledgling National Indian Gaming Commission, which was created by the 1988 law. Many tribes are hoping the panel will let them use some gambling machines without the states having a say.

In a letter to Lungren on Oct. 11, four California Indian communities--including Sycuan--warned that the proposed crackdown would be “patently unlawful” and could provoke confrontations.

But Wednesday’s raids proceeded without incident, according to both law enforcement and tribal officials.

“As much as we’re upset with the Sheriff’s Department, they at least came in the morning when there weren’t any customers around,” said Fritz Opel, a spokesman for the Sycuan Gaming Center.

He said the raid did not interfere with business at the 68,000-square-foot facility, which has a 1,500-seat bingo parlor, a 520-seat off-track betting “theater” and a sunken 35-table poker area overlooked by a restaurant, bar and gift shop. Thanks to gambling revenue, the once-impoverished 1-square-mile reservation is now dotted with new Spanish-style homes, a fire station and other improvements.

“We’re operating, going full-speed-ahead,” Opel said Wednesday afternoon, estimating current attendance at more than 3,000 people. “In fact, we have a very crowded day.”

Sycuan officials said they were surprised by the raids, in part because the only gambling machines they used were the pull-tab devices, which were created to duplicate the paper, Lottery ticket-like games legally sold at the bingo hall.

Although the object of the game is the same as that of a slot machine--matching three symbols, such as cherries--California tribes said they thought they had gotten an endorsement of its legality when a distributor was licensed to do business in Los Angeles County earlier this year. Two weeks ago, however, Los Angeles sheriff’s officials said they had given erroneous advice about the pull-tab machines to the county’s Business License Commission.

“We went to the (San Diego) Sheriff’s Department when we put them in,” Opel said. “We said . . . ‘We think they’re legal.’ ”

The tribe received no response from local authorities, he said.

The two other reservations raided used not only the pull-tab machines but a variety of gambling video machines, including ones that play poker and keno.

The Barona Reservation in December installed rows of colorful machines in a glass-walled room overlooking its bingo parlor. When someone won, the machines played the Hallelujah Chorus.

Tribe members working there said the outsiders who backed the gambling operation told them the devices were legal because players competed for money they pooled together, as in bingo.

“We’re very careful to not say they’re slot machines,” a manager at the Barona hall said.

The reopening of that hall--closed several times over the years--was financed by Emmett F. Munley, a Las Vegas-based bingo promoter who turned to Indian projects after twice failing to get a gambling license from the Nevada Gaming Control Board. Munley opened the first high-stakes bingo hall on the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation in New York, which was plagued by violent clashes of pro- and anti-gambling factions.

“The rewards are great if you’re in a good location and know what you’re doing,” he said once.

Bunce, the Barona tribal attorney, Wednesday questioned the presence of Nevada gambling officials at the San Diego raids.

“They are afraid of competition,” he said. “Why should people drive to Las Vegas when they can get some or all of the same things locally?”

The casino at the Viejas Rancheria is one of the newest Indian gambling facilities in the state. The tribe’s economic adviser, attorney John Winkelman, said the Indians were hoping to find some business “better than” gambling, but that the decision to open a casino “was their acceptance of the fact there were not business opportunities other than that.”

The loss of the machines has cut off a substantial portion of the fledgling casino’s business, Winkelman said, and about 80 of the 350 employees will be laid off.

“There will be no work for them until we get our machines back,” he said.

Castiglione reported from San Diego and Lieberman reported from Los Angeles.