Stand Up for California! is a statewide organization with a focus on gambling issues including tribal gaming, card clubs, horse racing, charitable gaming and the state lottery.

Off Reservation proposals: Bay Area, Butte,Madera and Yuba Counties. 

Environmental OK nears for casino plan
4/7/2008, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
In the race to bring a Las Vegas-style casino to the Bay Area, a tribe with connections to Lake County is inching closer but still faces significant opposition. The Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians is on the verge of getting its final environmental study approved for a 225,000-square-foot casino near Richmond. The lengthy document could be finalized by April 29, a key step before a decision is made on the casino proposal. The 181-member tribe still must convince the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs that the 30-acre site on the shores of San Pablo Bay is part of its ancestral territory and should be restored as tribal land. "We've been working on this 10 years," Tribal Chairman Donald Arnold said. "It's a long process."

Off-reservation casino bid a gamble
4/6/2008, Fresno Bee
The Mono Indians of Madera County's North Fork Rancheria are rolling the dice in their efforts to build a Las Vegas-style casino on Highway 99 miles from their traditional home. Other California tribes have built casinos on recently acquired land. North Fork, though, wants to become the first to build what is often called an off-reservation casino. The tribe must follow a complicated, time-consuming and politically sensitive process that only three tribes nationwide have navigated successfully. The odds are steep. The Interior Department is making it harder for tribes to build off-reservation gambling halls. Anti-gambling activists are warning about the dangers of casino expansion. Other tribes, leery of competition, contend the North Fork tribe would set a bad precedent by building a casino far from its traditional homeland.

Charities press for electronic-bingo fund influx
4/7/2008, San Diego Union Tribune
SACRAMENTO - To counter withering competition from Indian casinos and elsewhere, the Catholic Church and other charitable groups want to revolutionize conventional bingo with interconnected games that could offer six-figure prizes. Bingo sessions at hundreds of parishes, Elks lodges and other charities could be linked electronically to create a single game under legislation recently introduced in the state Senate. To draw crowds, the bill also raises the long-standing state cap on bingo prizes from $250 to 37 percent of gross receipts for a game. "Bingo 10 years ago was the number-one money-raiser in our lodge," said Robert Rubio of Calexico, a district chairman of the Elks. "Now it's zero. No bingo at all because we have these Indian casinos around us."

Butte's only goal is to block casino
4/6/2008, Chico
Butte County leaders stoutly maintain they have no objection to the Mechoopda as a people, but rather challenge the tribe's right to a reservation on any land besides a long-gone rancheria in Chico. In an effort to block the tribe's plans for a casino near the intersection of Highways 149 and 99, the county made that claim in a lawsuit filed in late March in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. In an exclusive interview with the Enterprise-Record, county Chief Administrative Officer C. Brian Haddix, Butte County Counsel Bruce Alpert and chairman of the Board of Supervisors, 4th District Supervisor Curt Josiassen, all said the only goal of the suit is to block the casino. They stressed that the county does not challenge the "sovereignty or legitimacy" of the Mechoopda tribe.

Editorial: History crucial to Mechoopda
4/6/2008, Chico Enterprise-Record
A few days back, Paul McIntosh, the former chief administrative officer of Butte County, wrote a letter to the editor accusing this paper of misrepresenting the county's position in regard to the Mechoopda Indians. This paper, reporting the county's lawsuit to block the Mechoopda's plan for a casino near the junction of Highways 149 and 99, had referred back to a 45-page letter from McIntosh to the Bureau of Indian Affairs dated Aug. 11, 2006, in which the county had claimed the Mechoopda had a "manufactured history." In his letter last week, McIntosh claimed the county had never challenged the "legitimacy of the Mechoopda."

PRO-CON: Should Congress rescind the ban on internet gambling? Yes
4/6/2008, Kansas City News
OOPS - RED Flag! The problem is that the law carves out exemptions for some forms of gambling, such as state lotteries and domestic horse racing, while banning most other forms, most notably poker, the most popular form of online wagering. The most popular online poker sites are all based overseas, where online gambling is legal.

Casinos hit jackpot
4/6/2008, San Bernardino Sun
Cha-ching! Casinos owned and operated by Southern California Indian tribes have seen a proliferation in slot machines since voters and state and federal governments approved gambling expansion deals. Those pacts are enabling tribes in the state to add 17,000 slot machines to their casinos. The state will receive a share of the profits until 2030. The San Manuel Band of Mission Indians in January got the green light from the U.S. Department of the Interior to have up to 5,500 slot machines in its casino.