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North Fork Rancheria is still building. Even after a California court setback, the tribe says the Madera casino project will keep going because federal law, not state law, controls gaming on the trust land tied to the site.
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State court pressure has not changed the core argument from North Fork Rancheria. The tribe says its right to conduct gaming near Madera rests on federal trust land and federal approvals, and it repeated that position after the latest California ruling stayed in place.
In a statement, the tribe said:
“The North Fork Rancheria’s right to game on its federal trust land near Madera, CA, is governed exclusively by federal law. Federal approvals of the North Fork project occurred in 2012 and 2016, and the federal courts have since upheld each approval in final, non-appealable decisions.”
That legal split has been at the heart of the fight for years. Opponents, including Picayune Rancheria of the Chukchansi Indians and local anti-gaming groups, have argued the project lacks valid state backing after a 2014 statewide vote rejected the development. North Fork keeps pointing the other way, back to federal action that cleared the site and later put the land into trust.
Construction already started in 2024 on a 100,000 square foot casino complex off Highway 99. North Fork has said work will continue, and public project references say the casino remains under construction with an opening target in 2026.
The tribe also framed the development as an economic project for both tribal citizens and the wider area. In the same statement, it said:
“North Fork will continue to comply with all applicable law as it proceeds with construction of its project to benefit the regional economy and the lives of its more than 3000 tribal citizens.”
Project scale is a big part of why the case keeps drawing attention. Plans call for more than 2,400 slot machines, 40 table games, and eight dining options, with around 1,000 jobs often cited by the tribe and local supporters. Critics, meanwhile, have kept using the phrase reservation shopping because the casino site sits more than 30 miles from the 80 acre rancheria in the Madera County mountains, even though federal authorities found ancestral ties to the Highway 99 site.
Federal court history still gives North Fork its main line of defense. A federal court ruled against project opponents in 2016, and U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said at the time:
“The law is not on their side.”