ND AG says he can't stop video bingo but gov. can

Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa officials got some sorta-good news from Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem Thursday. "There's not much I could do in my official capacity to prevent a Class 2 casino of the kind they're talking about," he told the City Beat. But, he said, the governor could still put the kibosh on the Grand Forks casino the tribe wants to build.

The tribe wants a Class 3 casino, meaning one with slot machines, but there's fat chance of that. The tribe would have to get the state gaming compact amended and Gov. John Hoeven said he wouldn't do it without the Legislature's blessings. In other words: Fat chance.

As an alternative, the tribe is looking at a Class 2 casino, which may have bingo, except it wants electronic bingo machines that look a lot like slot machines. The good news for the tribe is the AG can't stop this. The bad news is the governor can. The tribe will need to convert land to trust status, meaning tribal jurisdiction, to build a casino and the governor has veto power over that.

What's a tribe to do? The better news for the tribe is, without the AG in the way, it can develop video casinos at existing trust land sites near Williston, N.D., and between Minot and Bismarck. But then again, if those were such great locations, it would've built casinos there by now.