Bearskin's Gamble

The Seminoles have been under federal investigation for corruption. They've also been fined more than $6 million in two separate instances for failing to gain regulatory approval from the National Indian Gaming Commission before opening other casinos in Florida. Ginsburg is the "general partner" in a deal with the Seminoles, leasing the Coconut Creek gambling hall to the tribe at an estimated $18 million a year, according to the St. Petersburg Times.

Coconut Creek's city manager, John Kelly, says that Ginsburg was the man who made the deal between the tribe and the casino possible and describes him as "squeaky clean."

Whether the casino is legal is a matter of dispute. Florida does not permit tribal-state compacts, which may mean that casinos such as Coconut Creek's are illegal. The Florida Attorney General's office has filed suit against the tribe, but the case remains tied up in court over several technicalities. Kelly, whose town of 46,000 enjoys $1 million in annual revenues from the casino, says the city is content to let the courts decide.

It's Ginsburg's deep pockets that have given Bearskin the leverage to press forward in court. His firm, North American Sports Management, has promised to bankroll the Wyandottes' litigation through to completion.

The tribe has always wanted to develop a casino at the Woodlands racetrack. In the mid-'90s the Wyandottes tried to buy the Woodlands after it went into bankruptcy, but that effort failed. Despite the setback, in March 1998 Wyandotte County's Unified Government signed a memorandum of understanding with Bearskin's tribe, with both parties agreeing that developing a casino in the county was a good idea. The tribe promised to pay the government 5.9 percent of gross revenues.

But even as they were hoping some land near the Woodlands would become available, Bearskin and Ginsburg turned their attention to the Huron Indian Cemetery downtown, which had been held in trust for the tribe for 150 years. In 1996, the Wyandottes purchased the Masonic Temple, a historic building next door to the cemetery.

For a tribe that wanted to build a casino at the Woodlands, the Wyandottes went out of their way to pursue projects elsewhere.

The U.S. government has specific rules about how tribes can acquire land for gaming. If they bought land before 1988, the Bureau of Indian Affairs can hold it in trust for gaming purposes. But if a tribe purchased land after 1988, the BIA can take it into trust only if a state's governor approves the transaction, if the land is next to a reservation the tribe already owns or if the purchase money came from settlement claims with the federal government.

The Wyandotte tribe contended that because the Huron cemetery was its land -- was a reservation -- the BIA could take the land next door into trust. The BIA agreed and did so.

The Huron Cemetery rests on a man-made hill in the center of downtown Kansas City, Kansas, next door to the city's library and adjacent to a small city park. From the library side, a wooden flight of steps rises up into the heart of the tranquil but littered cemetery. It's walled in from the west by several small buildings.

The Masonic Temple would make a terrible casino -- it's not very big inside, and parking in downtown Kansas City, Kansas, would be a significant headache. More problematic for Bearskin was that he didn't have the city's support. But he wanted to get some kind of casino up and running, and he thought the threat of opening a casino where no one wanted one would increase his chances for a casino in western Wyandotte County.

What Bearskin didn't count on was a long legal fight over whether he had the right to open a temporary casino. First, three other northeastern Kansas tribes filed a motion for a temporary restraining order: the Sac and Fox (which has a casino in Powhattan, west of Horton), the Iowa (which has a casino in White Cloud, at the northeastern tip of Kansas) and the Potowatomi, whose Harrah's Prairie Band Casino is just 15 miles north of Topeka.

"The other tribes don't want him at all," Zane says.

The tribes found an ally in Governor Bill Graves, who refused to support any out-of-state tribes wanting to build a casino in Kansas.

"We have four tribes who reside here," says Natalie Haag, Graves' chief of staff. "The purpose of the Indian Gaming Act was to provide economic opportunities for the members of a tribe. We're trying to protect those tribes." She says the state opposes the Wyandotte's earning revenue in Kansas, then taking it out of state. She adds that any of more than a dozen other tribes with a historical connection to Kansas could make a claim similar to Bearskin's if he succeeds.

Although the federal court in Topeka granted the restraining order, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver swiftly overruled the Topeka court.

The decision boiled down to this: Whining about the adverse effects of competition doesn't impress a judge. "Our economy is based on competition. Those are weak arguments," says Mario Gonzalez, who served as attorney for the Kickapoo tribe in Horton, Kansas.