With the promise of cash gains in a city struggling for respectability,

Richmond city officials lent an ear to a casino proposal last week.

This roll of the dice comes from the Lake County-based Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians, a tribe with about 160 members who have laid claim to aboriginal homelands at the foot of San Francisco Bay.

The tribe is eyeing a vacant waterfront terminal that sits between the old Ford Assembly plant and the Port of Richmond. Two other privately held properties in Richmond have also been identified as potential sites.

The proposal is not new, but the prospect, however preliminary, of building an urban casino dredges up a familiar dilemma.

Is it in the best interests of the community -- or the tribe -- to provide a gambling facility within a stone's throw of residential neighborhoods? There are others who argue that a gaming casino isn't the best use of land owned or granted to an Indian tribe.

So far, Gov. Gray Davis has stood firm in his belief that Proposition 1A, a March 2000 measure approving tribal casinos on reservation land, was not intended for the creation of casinos in the state's urban areas.

Consequently, Davis has yet to negotiate a state compact to allow a different tribe -- the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians -- to transform Casino San Pablo into a Nevada-style casino that would include up to 2,000 slot machines.

The Lytton band won federal approval with help from Rep. George Miller, D- Martinez, who crafted an amendment that placed the 10-acre site under federal jurisdiction.

Miller approved the proposal brought by San Pablo and tribal officials on its merits, said Miller spokesman Danny Weiss.

Miller was criticized by some members of the Bay Area congressional delegation for slipping in the amendment that allowed the Lytton Band to make the deal to acquire the San Pablo casino.

In Sacramento and in Congress, there are concerns that most legitimate California tribes could make fairly reasonable claims of ancestral connections to most waterfront properties across the state.

Meanwhile, the Upper Lake Tribe of Pomo Indians have floated a proposal to build and operate a 400-room hotel and casino in West Sacramento. They claim no ancestral connection to the site, but an annual $6 million boost to city revenues has officials from the city of 35,000 people in a lather.

And Oakland city officials made a weak attempt in 2001 to cut a deal with San Jose's Muwekma tribe of Ohlone Indians -- who have yet to be federally recognized. But in approving the Oakland Army Base Reuse plan, the casino proposal was shelved, and it won't be coming back.

You can't blame Oakland City Hall for trying, because the allure of windfall revenues is very tempting, especially for cash-strapped California cities.

In Richmond, casino backers have offered a 16-year deal worth $74 million. Under the proposal before the City Council, casino operators would pay the city $3 million in each of the first three years and $5 million annually through the duration of the state compact that allows them to do business. The tribe would also pay an additional $1 million a year for the first 10 years to operate from the city-owned site, said Kean, a co-founder of Grand Casinos Inc. , which operates Indian casinos in Minnesota and Louisiana.

According to Kean's estimates, Richmond would be looking at more than $2 billion in jobs and revenues over the life of the deal, but they would need another amendment or a radical policy shift from Sacramento, and neither seem immediately forthcoming.

Richmond city officials heard the presentation but have scheduled no more meetings until the proposal is thoroughly reviewed.

"We are engaging lawyers and consultants because we just don't know much about the gaming industry," said Steve Duran, director of Richmond's economic development agency.

It might not matter.

Davis has shown no signs of surrendering his opposition to the San Pablo casino deal, and another Miller amendment essentially creating an urban reservation will not go unnoticed again.

And while Miller's office insists that no precedent was set with the congressman's actions, it will be difficult to reject a request from Richmond city officials who ask only for the same consideration the San Pablo deal received.

The old argument -- that casinos attract an undesirable element to the community -- doesn't hold water in nearby North Richmond, an unincorporated place where atrocious acts of violence are all too commonplace.

Likewise, it would be hard to imagine a casino or any other business operation being more unsavory than a stroll through East Oakland's killing fields or the bad scene in Richmond's infamous Iron Triangle.

Allowing Indian casinos to be built on ancestral homelands in Bay Area urban centers is fraught with problems, including the financial viability of such ventures, but the claim of a more dangerous environment isn't one of them.