25 U.S.C. § 2701
Section 2701 · Findings
This is § 2 of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 400 court decisions — leading case Greater New Orleans Broadcasting Association Incs v. United States (1999)
Most recently applied in 2025 OK AG 7 - Question Submitted by: The Honorable Avery Frix, Oklahoma State Senate, District 9 (June 2025)
Applied most in the Tenth Circuit Circuit (29 decisions)
Cases citing this section usually also cite 25 U.S.C. § 2710 · 25 U.S.C. § 2703 · 25 U.S.C. § 2702
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
The Congress finds that—
(1) numerous Indian tribes have become engaged in or have licensed gaming activities on Indian lands as a means of generating tribal governmental revenue;
(2) Federal courts have held that section 81 of this title requires Secretarial review of management contracts dealing with Indian gaming, but does not provide standards for approval of such contracts;
(3) existing Federal law does not provide clear standards or regulations for the conduct of gaming on Indian lands;
(4) a principal goal of Federal Indian policy is to promote tribal economic development, tribal self-sufficiency, and strong tribal government; and
(5) Indian tribes have the exclusive right to regulate gaming activity on Indian lands if the gaming activity is not specifically prohibited by Federal law and is conducted within a State which does not, as a matter of criminal law and public policy, prohibit such gaming activity.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Short Title
Section 1 of Pub. L. 100–497 provided: “That this Act [enacting this chapter and sections 1166 to 1168 of Title 18, Crimes and Criminal Procedure] may be cited as the ‘Indian Gaming Regulatory Act’.”