As reported by: Contra Costa Times
Casino San Pablo, long at the center of the debate over Indian gaming's future in California, has formally become a tribal reservation.

The U.S. Interior Department took it into trust Thursday for a landless North Bay Indian tribe seeking to operate the state's first urban slot-machine parlor.

The casino, which is now a card club, formally belongs to the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians, which began to acquire it more than three years ago.

If the Lyttons can now negotiate a compact with either outgoing Gov. Gray Davis or Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger, they would bring the first slot machines to the Bay Area since state voters opened California to the expansion of Indian gaming in 2000.

The Lyttons would also bring to San Pablo what Mayor Sharon Brown called a desperately needed $5 million a year in gaming revenue. "We are very pleased," Brown said late Friday. "I am not jumping up and down... but I am optimistic."

A spokesman for the governor-elect said Friday that under a Schwarzenegger administration "everything's on the table when it comes to Indian gaming."

In compact negotiations, Schwarzenegger will be looking for the state to receive "its fair share" of gaming revenue. Under federal law, states may not tax Indian gaming. But the two sides can negotiate for a share of gambling profits.

Tribal lawyer Tony Cohen said Friday that the Lyttons recognize the need to share revenue with the state as well as San Pablo.

A coalition of Bay Area card rooms and charities that raise money through bingo games filed two federal lawsuits to stop Lyttons and lost both in U.S. District Court. Both are still pending before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.