The Cayuga Nation of New York sued Caesars Entertainment in federal court on Tuesday, alleging that the company offered online sports betting on tribal lands.
In the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, the federally recognized tribe claims that Caesars Sportsbook violated the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) by accepting wagers within the boundaries of the Nation’s reservation without the tribe’s authorization.
“Despite clear statutory mandates, Defendant conducted gaming within the Reservation without the Nation’s authorization, approval of a Tribal-State compact, or oversight by the National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC) or the Secretary of the Interior, as required by IGRA,” reads the complaint’s introduction.
“Through Defendant’s applications and servers licensed by the New York State Gaming Commission, Defendant accepted wagers placed from physical locations within the Reservation’s boundaries, including wagers from users who are present on Indian lands.”
In doing so, asserts the Nation, Caesars compromised Cayuga’s IGRA-given exclusive jurisdiction to regulate gaming on its lands, and “deprived the Nation of the governmental and economic benefits Congress intended IGRA to secure.”
Cayuga Nation claims Caesars agreed to cease and desist
In the lawsuit, the Cayuga Nation states that Caesars took bets on its lands over a period of more than three years between January 2022 and July 2025. It also alleges that Caesars is breaching advertising laws by promoting its mobile sportsbook as legal everywhere in New York State.
The tribe purports to have sent a cease-and-desist letter to the gaming giant on June 20, 2025, and claims that Caesars responded the following month by agreeing to implement geofencing measures to ensure it did not accept any more bets within reservation boundaries.
However, the Nation alleges that Caesars declined to provide a complete accounting of its wagering activity and the revenue generated from bets placed within the reservation, rejecting a request made in the cease-and-desist notice.
SBC Americas reached out to Caesars for a response to the lawsuit.
Other sportsbooks reportedly blocked access
In an article published last year, The Auburn Citizen reported that some mobile sportsbooks appeared to have blocked access to their apps from the Cayuga Nation’s reservation.
A legal representative for the Nation confirmed that the tribe “proactively reached out” to operators to inform them they were violating IGRA by offering betting on Cayuga lands, and stated that some mobile sportsbooks complied with its requests to “cease illegal operations.”
The attorney told the Citizen that IGRA stipulates that class III gaming including mobile sports betting is not permitted on Indian lands “unless both a federally approved gaming ordinance and a tribal-state compact are in place”, even if the state has otherwise allowed mobile betting.
“Although the Cayuga Nation has enacted a valid and approved gaming ordinance, it has not entered into a compact with the state of New York,” the Cayuga Nation representative added. “Accordingly, mobile betting operations that are not expressly authorized and operated by the Nation itself violate IGRA and the Nation’s gaming ordinance, and undermine the Nation’s federally protected sovereignty.”
The attorney said at the time that the Cayuga Nation would be willing to take legal action against operators if they did not block sports betting on their apps on the tribe’s lands.
Where does a mobile bet ‘take place’
In the ensuing court case, the New York court will have to wrestle with a recurring fundamental debate in tribal gambling: the very question of where a mobile sports wager is legally deemed to take place.
One side of the argument is that the definition of where a bet is placed should be based on the physical location of the device used to place said wager. However, the other side of the coin is that it’s where the server is located that is important. The most high-profile example of this debate has involved the Seminole Tribe in Florida, which offers statewide online sports betting via the “hub-and-spoke” model that routes all online bets through servers located on tribal lands.
That is the same model on which Wisconsin intends to base its newly legalized, yet-to-launch sports betting market.
New York’s gaming laws would seem to agree with this interpretation.
“All sports wagers through electronic communication placed in accordance with this section are considered placed or otherwise made when and where received by the mobile sports wagering licensee on such mobile sports wagering licensee’s server or other equipment used to accept mobile sports wagering at a licensed gaming facility, regardless of the authorized sports bettor’s physical location within the state at the time the sports wager is placed,” reads a section of the Empire State’s Racing, Pari-Mutuel Wagering and Breeding Law.
Cayuga Nation also sued state of New York
The Nation has a history of taking battles to court.
Last summer, a judge in the same federal court ruled that it could continue with its legal action against New York State over the sale of lottery tickets on its lands. A judge denied the New York State Gaming Commission’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which also hinges on perceived violations of IGRA and alleged unlawful Class III gaming on tribal land.
The Cayuga Nation argued in that case that either New York must cease Class III gaming on tribal lands, or it must negotiate a valid tribal-state gaming compact.
