By Lance Burkhart on March 27, 2009
HONOLULU, HAWAII -- Hawaii wants to recognize Native Hawaiians so they can benefit from federal legislation for indigenous groups, but only so long as that doesn't include gambling. To ensure natives don't establish casinos, the islands' US Senators and Congressmen added language forbidding gaming rights.Hawaii and Utah are the only two states in the US without any form of legal gambling. Recently, some state politicians have openly broached the idea of bringing casino gaming to the islands as a source of revenue.Without any legalized gambling, indigenous groups are denied any casino rights. But, whenever a form of gambling is legal anywhere in a state, that's state's natives have the right to host similar gaming on their lands in trust.The clause forbidding gambling rights was added last year in an attempt to make the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act more acceptable to the Bush administration. It was struck as unnecessary when Obama took office, but some civic groups complained.A spokesman for Senator Daniel Akaka said, "That provision was taken out because it was considered not necessary because gambling already is illegal in Hawaii and there's no way the Native Hawaiian entity could have gambling in Hawaii unless the state of Hawaii decided to change course and legalize it for everybody."
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