Catawba's Video Poker Rights Upheld In Court

It is a story that has been in the telling since South Carolina outlawed video poker in 2000. Because of an exception that centers around a 1993 land claim settlement with federal and state governments, the Catawba Indian Tribe has laid claim to the rights to operate video poker on their lands. The battle has been raging for some time, and seemed to be nearing a conclusion at the end of 2005. Now Judge Joseph Strickland has upheld his earlier ruling that they do indeed have the right to operate video poker on their reservation, located about ten miles outside of Charlotte.The state appealed the judges initial ruling on December 13th, especially after the Indian Tribe used the ruling as a bargaining chip to try and get approval for a bingo casino in Santee. The state says it will appeal this ruling as well.