The Ho-Chunk Casino is operated by the Ho-Chunk Nation in Wisconsin. As with many other tribe casinos around the nation, some time ago the Ho-Chunk Casino began offering video poker even though video poker is not legalized throughout the rest of Wisconsin.
Prior to launching video poker, the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in April that video poker was within the tribe gambling compact, but the Wisconsin Department of Justice decided to take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court anyway, LaCrosseTribune.com reports.
Their claim is that video poker is a Class III card game, and therefore prohibited under the gambling compact. Nonetheless, the complaint seems to have far more to do with a loophole legalized form of online gambling, than it does with concerns of a law being broken.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice’s attempt to criminalize the tribe’s right to offer video poker failed—because the case was one of 1,600 cases the court declined to take up—meaning that video poker still stands at the Ho-Chunk Nation Casino.
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