Scope of Games: What a Tribal-State Compact Actually Authorizes

Every tribal-state gaming compact contains a provision that determines more about a casino's business than any other single clause. It is usually titled "Authorized Class III Gaming Activities" or something close to it, and practitioners call it the scope of games. The tribal-state compact scope of games is the negotiated list of what the tribe may legally offer on its Class III floor — and, by implication, everything it may not. Understanding that list, and how it changes, explains most of the structural differences between tribal gaming markets that otherwise look similar.

What the term covers

Under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, Class III gaming — slot machines, house-banked table games, sports wagering, and most other casino-style games — may only be conducted under a compact negotiated between the tribe and the state. IGRA does not specify which Class III games a compact must authorize. It leaves that to negotiation, subject to the threshold requirement that the state permit the class of activity in question for any purpose by any person, organization or entity.

The result is that a compact's scope-of-games provision is a bespoke inventory. A typical one enumerates categories with some precision: slot machines or "gaming devices," specified banked card games, roulette, craps, keno, pari-mutuel wagering, and — in newer agreements — sports wagering and sometimes online or mobile products. Games not on the list are not authorized, whatever the tribe's regulators or the market might prefer.

Scope of games is distinct from, though frequently confused with, several neighboring provisions. Device caps limit how many machines a tribe may operate, not which games they run; we cover that separately in our explainer on device caps and slot machine limits. Class II gaming — bingo and games technically derived from it, including a large category of electronic bingo machines — requires no compact at all and therefore sits outside the scope-of-games clause entirely. Our explainer on the difference between Class II and Class III gaming covers that boundary.

Why the list is negotiated, not assumed

States approach scope of games as leverage, because it is the most direct thing they have to trade. A state that permits commercial casino gaming broadly has weak grounds to withhold most categories. A state whose only legal gambling is a lottery and charitable bingo has a much stronger position, and compacts in those states tend to be correspondingly narrow.

Tribes, for their part, treat scope as the core economic term. The difference between a compact that authorizes house-banked blackjack and one that does not can be a meaningful share of table revenue. The difference between one that includes sports wagering and one that does not determines whether a tribe participates in an entire product category or watches competitors capture it.

A compact's revenue-sharing percentage gets the headlines. Its scope-of-games list determines what there is to share.

This is why so many compact negotiations that appear to be about money are actually about product. A state offering broader scope can credibly ask for more revenue sharing in exchange, because the tribe is receiving something of measurable value — and IGRA's framework generally requires that revenue sharing be tied to a meaningful concession, most often exclusivity or expanded scope. A demand for payment without either is where good-faith disputes begin.

How new games get added

Because compacts frequently run for decades, the scope-of-games list is almost always older than the market it governs. Sports wagering is the obvious example: virtually no compact written before 2018 contemplated it, because the federal prohibition made it moot. When the legal landscape changed, tribes with long-dated compacts found their authorized-games list silent on the most-discussed new product in the industry.

There are three standard routes. The first is a compact amendment — a negotiated addition to the existing agreement, signed by the tribe and the governor, submitted to the Secretary of the Interior, and published in the Federal Register. This is the cleanest path and the most common one for adding sports betting, electronic table games or new device categories. Our explainer on how a compact amendment works walks through the mechanics.

The second is a built-in flexibility clause. Some modern compacts include language authorizing "any Class III game permitted under state law" or provide a defined process by which the tribal gaming regulatory authority may approve new games meeting stated criteria, with notice to the state. These clauses reduce the need to reopen the agreement every time a new product appears, and drafters increasingly favor them for that reason.

The third is a most-favored-nation or parity clause, under which a tribe automatically receives scope granted to another tribe in the same state. In states with many compacted tribes, these provisions keep the market from fragmenting into materially different product offerings.

Where disputes come from

Most scope-of-games litigation traces to one of three ambiguities. The first is definitional: whether a particular machine or game falls within an authorized category. Historical horse racing terminals, electronic table games and various hybrid devices have all generated arguments about whether they are the thing the compact named or something adjacent to it.

The second is the state-law threshold. Because IGRA conditions Class III compacting on the state permitting the activity for some purpose, changes to state law can arguably expand or contract what a tribe may negotiate for. A state that legalizes a new game for commercial operators may find tribes asserting a right to negotiate for it.

The third is location. Compacts written for physical casinos on Indian lands do not obviously resolve where a wager placed on a mobile device is deemed to occur — the question underlying most of the current litigation over tribal online sports betting. Compacts drafted since 2021 typically address it directly. Older ones do not.

For readers working through a specific compact, the practical advice is simple: read the authorized-games section first, then the amendment procedure, then the definitions. Those three provisions, together, describe the boundaries of the business. Our Legal Guide to IGRA and Class III gaming covers the surrounding framework in more depth.