Supreme Court Ends Maverick Challenge to Washington Tribal Compacts

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear RunItOneTime LLC v. United States, ending a years-long effort by a commercial cardroom operator to invalidate the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and, with it, every Class III gaming compact between the State of Washington and its federally recognized tribes. The denial of certiorari leaves in place a Ninth Circuit decision that dismissed the case on procedural grounds, and it preserves the Washington tribal gaming compacts that anchor the state's casino and sports-betting framework.

RunItOneTime, the company formerly known as Maverick Gaming, operates cardrooms across Washington and had argued that IGRA unlawfully grants tribes an exclusive right to conduct casino-style gaming and sports wagering that private operators are denied. The company first sued federal and state officials in 2022, seeking a ruling that the compacts were void. With the Supreme Court's refusal to take the case, that theory has now been turned away at every level of the federal judiciary.

Why the case never reached the merits

The decisive issue was never whether IGRA is constitutional, but whether the lawsuit could proceed at all without the tribes themselves in the courtroom. When the challenge was filed, the Shoalwater Bay Tribe — whose compact was directly targeted — intervened and argued that the case had to be dismissed because Washington's tribes were indispensable parties to any suit seeking to void their agreements. Tribes enjoy sovereign immunity and cannot be forced into federal court against their will, so if they are indispensable and cannot be joined, the suit cannot go forward.

Both the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed. A tribe's compact is a bargained-for exercise of its sovereignty, the courts reasoned, and no plaintiff can ask a federal judge to erase that agreement while the sovereign that signed it stands outside the litigation. By declining review, the Supreme Court left that reasoning undisturbed.

The outcome is a reminder that tribal sovereign immunity is not merely a defense a tribe raises after being sued — it can determine whether a lawsuit aimed at tribal interests is capable of being heard at all.

What it means for the 29 Washington tribes

For the 29 tribes operating under Washington compacts, the practical effect is continuity. The compacts that authorize their casinos, and the more recent amendments that brought retail sports betting onto tribal property, remain valid and enforceable. Operators that had been watching the docket for any sign of disruption to their exclusivity can now plan against a settled legal backdrop rather than an open constitutional question.

The ruling also reinforces a broader pattern. Commercial gaming interests in several states have tested whether courts will treat tribal exclusivity as a vulnerability, and they have repeatedly run into the same structural barrier: challenges that would unwind a compact tend to founder on the tribe's absence as a party. Washington's multi-operator retail sports-betting rollout, built on the compact amendments the tribes negotiated, rests on the same foundation the Supreme Court has now left in place. Readers tracking that expansion can follow it through our coverage of Washington's tribal sportsbook framework.

A narrow procedural win with wide reach

It is worth being precise about what the denial does and does not decide. The Supreme Court did not rule that IGRA is constitutional, and it did not endorse the policy of tribal exclusivity on the merits. A denial of certiorari is not a decision on the substance; it simply leaves the lower court's judgment standing. In theory, a differently postured case — one that somehow avoided the indispensable-party problem — could still raise the underlying questions RunItOneTime wanted answered.

In practice, however, that path is exceedingly narrow. The indispensable-party doctrine is not a technicality that a better-drafted complaint can sidestep; it flows directly from the structure of tribal sovereignty and from the way IGRA channels gaming authority through negotiated compacts. So long as a plaintiff's goal is to void those compacts, the tribes will be indispensable, and their immunity will keep them out of court. That is precisely why tribal advocates have characterized the denial as a durable win rather than a lucky escape.

For a fuller account of how the litigation evolved from Maverick Gaming's original theory to the company's rebranding and final appeal, see our earlier analysis of the Maverick challenge. And for the statutory mechanics that make compacts the load-bearing wall of Class III gaming — the negotiation requirements, the role of the Secretary of the Interior, and the limits IGRA places on state demands — our Legal Guide to IGRA and Class III gaming lays out the framework the Court has once again left intact.

The larger takeaway for the industry is stability. After several years in which the validity of an entire state's compacts hung on a single docket, the question is resolved. Washington's tribes can continue to operate, invest, and expand under agreements that the nation's highest court has now, in effect, allowed to stand.