The Southern Ute Indian Tribe says the state’s handling of the online sports betting rollout and resulting legal dispute has brought tribal-state relations to “one of the lowest points” in recent history.
A recent federal court ruling against the tribes hasn’t helped. The tribe sued Gov. Jared Polis and the director of the Colorado Division of Gaming, Christopher Schroder, in federal court in 2024, alleging Colorado was illegally freezing them out of the lucrative online sports betting market. The Ute Mountain Ute Tribe joined the lawsuit shortly after.
The lawsuit claimed Colorado acted in bad faith, used delay tactics and belatedly made legal arguments that conflict with federal law and a state gaming compact with the tribes. The state defended its position, saying it had the authority to regulate sports betting that happened off tribal land, even if the tribes were running the platform.
A federal court decision accepted the state’s request to dismiss the lawsuit and closed the case. The ruling homed in on a central legal conundrum in the case, one that arrived with the rise of the internet age: The tribal gaming regulation from the 1980s was based on where bettors and casino floors were located — but what happens when the bettor uses a cellphone in Denver to bet on a game processed by Southern Ute Indian Tribe servers in southwestern Colorado?
“Where then does the gaming occur?” U.S. District Court Judge Gordon Gallagher wrote in his opinion issued Thursday.
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