Alaska’s Newest Tribal Casino Is Already Fighting for Its Right to Exist
Alaska’s newest tribal casino opened two weeks ago. Its landowners want it shut down, and the federal legal basis is already contested.
The Two Coppers Casino soft-opened on Douglas Island near Juneau on June 3, becoming one of the only operating tribal casinos in Alaska and the first in the Juneau area. The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska opened the facility on a 20-acre Native allotment site on Fish Creek Road, with construction still ongoing at the time of opening. Tribal president Chalyee Éesh Richard Peterson described it as an expression of sovereignty and an economic opportunity for tribal members and the broader community.
Within days, the family that owns the land was demanding that it be shut down.
Jimmy George Jr., writing on behalf of the heirs of the Angoon man whose family owns the allotment where the casino sits, sent a letter to federal gaming officials on June 8 asserting that unlicensed gaming is occurring at a facility that constitutes a public health and safety hazard and is not lawfully authorized. The George Family’s objections rest on a legal foundation that was already unstable before the casino opened, and the combination creates a situation with more than one path to forced closure.
The Lack of Precedent in Alaskan Tribal Gaming Creates Questionmarks
The most immediate dispute is the land itself. The casino sits on a small piece of a Native allotment owned by tribal citizens who lease it to Tlingit and Haida. The George Family’s position appears to be that the lease or the gaming authorization built on top of it is either unauthorized or structurally defective. The specific legal theory in their complaint has not been fully detailed in public reporting, but the core claim is straightforward: the people who own the ground say the casino should not be there.
That dispute sits alongside a second problem of federal origin. In September 2025, a top Interior Department official revoked a legal opinion that had formed part of the legal basis for both the Two Coppers Casino and the Eklutna tribal gaming hall near Anchorage, with the revocation memo stating that any actions taken by the Interior Department or the National Indian Gaming Commission in reliance on the prior opinion should be reevaluated. Tlingit and Haida declined to say at the time whether construction would continue. It did, and the casino opened.
The NIGC had approved the Tlingit and Haida gaming hall in January 2025 under the legal framework that the September memo subsequently called into question. Whether that approval survives reevaluation and what reevaluation actually requires in practice have not been publicly resolved. The casino opened into that uncertainty rather than after it was cleared.
The third layer is Alaska’s distinctive tribal gaming history, which has made every new opening a precedent-setting event. Unlike the lower 48, where tribal gaming is a well-established industry operating under decades of case law and regulatory practice, Alaska has almost no comparable infrastructure. Two Coppers is Juneau’s first casino and one of the very few operating in the state. The legal interpretations being tested here lack a deep body of Alaska-specific precedent to draw on, which means disputes that might be routine elsewhere carry more weight.
The George Family Complaint Opens a Multi-front Opposition
The George Family letter was addressed to federal gaming officials, which means the NIGC is the relevant audience. The commission has authority over Class II gaming on tribal lands, which is the category Two Coppers appears to operate under, covering electronic gaming machines and bingo-based games rather than Class III table games. If the NIGC determines that the casino is operating without proper authorization, it can issue a notice of violation and order the casino to close.
That process is not instantaneous and can get drawn out. Tribal gaming disputes involving land status and authorization questions tend to move slowly through federal administrative channels, and tribes have procedural rights throughout the process. The George Family’s complaint is the beginning of a potential enforcement action, not the end of one.
But the timing still plays a pivotal role in this scenario. A casino that opens with construction still underway, on land whose ownership and lease terms are now actively contested, under a federal authorization whose legal basis has been flagged for reevaluation by the Interior Department, is operating with a thin margin for error. Any one of those issues might be resolvable on its own. Facing all three simultaneously, in the opening weeks of operation, is a more difficult position.
Tribal Casino’s Legal Framework Typically Involves Overlapping Authorities
The Two Coppers situation is unusual in its specifics but not entirely unusual as a pattern. Tribal casinos sometimes open before every legal question surrounding them is fully resolved, in part because the economic stakes of delay are high for tribes that have invested significantly in development, and in part because the legal framework governing tribal gaming involves enough overlapping federal, state, and tribal authorities that complete certainty before opening is rarely achievable.
What makes the Alaska context particular is the absence of established local precedent and the active hostility of the current federal administration toward the legal framework that enabled these openings. The Eklutna gaming hall near Anchorage has taken a similar posture, remaining open while reviewing the implications of the revocation order. Both facilities are effectively operating on the bet that the revocation will ultimately not survive legal challenge or administrative reevaluation, and that their existing NIGC approvals provide sufficient cover in the meantime.
That bet may be a winning or losing proposition, and a lot needs to play out before we have our answer. The George Family complaint adds a landowner dimension, separate from the federal authorization question and potentially more immediately actionable. A tribe can argue federal preemption against a state regulator. Arguing it against the family whose land the casino sits on is a different kind of dispute, and one with fewer obvious procedural advantages.
Tlingit and Haida have not publicly responded to the George Family letter. The NIGC has not commented, and Two Coppers remains open for now.
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