{"id":934,"date":"2025-05-01T16:21:44","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T16:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/?p=934"},"modified":"2025-09-22T12:10:38","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T12:10:38","slug":"us-supreme-court-delivers-fatal-blow-to-sault-tribes-detroit-casino-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/us-supreme-court-delivers-fatal-blow-to-sault-tribes-detroit-casino-dream\/","title":{"rendered":"US Supreme Court Delivers Fatal Blow to Sault Tribe\u2019s Detroit Casino Dream"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><strong>The Supreme Court declined to hear the Sault Tribe\u2019s appeal over a denied casino land trust<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The tribe hoped to build a casino near Detroit, far from its Upper Peninsula base<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>A prior court ruling required the tribe to pay $88M in damages to casino investors<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p>The US Supreme Court has ended the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians&#8217; longstanding pursuit of an off-reservation casino near Detroit.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_351150\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-351150\" data-style=\"width: 1026px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-351150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Kewadin-Casinos-858x559-1.jpg\" alt=\"Sault Tribe, US Supreme Court, the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, Detroit casino\" width=\"1026\" height=\"668\" \/><figcaption>The Sault Tribe owns five casinos in Michigan\u2019s sparsely populated Upper Peninsula, above, but has long had designs on Detroit. (Image: Kewadin Casinos)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The nation\u2019s highest court this week declined to hear the tribe\u2019s suit, which argued that the federal government erred when it declined to take land the tribe owns near Detroit Metropolitan Airport into trust for casino development.<\/p>\n<div class=\"callout\">\n<p>The Sault tribe is Michigan\u2019s largest Native American group and already owns five casinos in the state\u2019s remote Upper Peninsula, all under the Kewadin brand name. The tribe has long dreamed of operating a more lucrative resort in the more populous south.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>While the Upper Peninsula covers nearly 30% of Michigan\u2019s land area, it holds only about 3% of its population and has no major metropolitan areas or economic centers.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Double Whammy<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The tribe applied to the US Interior Department\u2019s Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to approve land for two casinos under the Michigan Indian Land Claims Settlement Act (MILSCA), including a plot near the airport and another for a proposed project in Lansing.<\/p>\n<p>In both cases, the BIA\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/tribe-plans-challenge-feds-lansing-casino\/\">denied the tribe\u2019s applications<\/a> to take the land into trust, a prerequisite for gaming.<\/p>\n<p>Among the reasons cited by the BIA was that the land was too far from the tribe\u2019s headquarters to meet the condition that it would \u201cenhance\u201d its reservation, a key requirement of MILCSA.<\/p>\n<div class=\"callout\">\n<p>The tribe sued the Interior Department in August 2018, arguing the decision was arbitrary and capricious, and violated the department\u2019s mandatory duty under MILCSA.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The lower court initially sided with the tribe but its decision was reversed in 2022 by the DC Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court\u2019s denial of the case essentially upholds that decision.<\/p>\n<p>The tribe had argued that the BIA\u2019s interpretation of MILSCA \u201cguarantees that the tribe has no ability to take land into trust in areas that would allow it to achieve meaningful economic development.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><strong>$88M Judgment<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>In January 2023, a court ruled the Sault tribe must pay investors in the two derailed casino projects more than $88 million in damages.<\/p>\n<div class=\"callout\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/michigan-tribe-sued-for-124-million-over-derailed-lansing-casino-project\/\">The investors sued<\/a>\u00a0in April 2020 for breach of contract and fraudulent misrepresentation, claiming the tribe made false representations about the ease with which it could obtain approval for the two projects.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The tribe appealed the $88 million judgment, eventually settling with the investors for around $25 million.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/us-supreme-court-delivers-fatal-blow-to-sault-tribes-detroit-casino\/\">US Supreme Court Delivers Fatal Blow to Sault Tribe\u2019s Detroit Casino Dream<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\">Casino.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Supreme Court declined to hear the Sault Tribe\u2019s appeal over a denied casino land trust The tribe hoped to build a casino near Detroit, far from its Upper Peninsula base A prior court ruling required the tribe to pay $88M in damages to casino investors The US Supreme Court has ended the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians&#8217; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":936,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=934"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":937,"href":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/934\/revisions\/937"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chuckwardrealestate.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}