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With little to lose and much to gain, the Bay Mills Indian Community has opened a mini-casino in Vanderbilt, a village on Interstate 75 north of Gaylord, without federal or state approval.

If the play in Vanderbilt succeeds, the tribe will convert the old Port Huron post office on Military Street into a temporary casino with 1,500 slot machines.

Eventually, Bay Mills intends to build a permanent casino and luxury hotel at Desmond Landing, where the tribe owns 16.5 acres. This parcel would become the first Indian reservation in Port Huron since the 1830s when federal troops forcibly removed the Blackwater band of the Chippewa to Kansas.

From ICT:

By Gale Courey Toensing, Today staff

VANDERBILT, Mich. – In a move that astonished the gaming world in Michigan and outraged some of the state’s tribal nations, the Bay Mills Indian Community announced it has opened a new casino on off-reservation land without the usual state and federal approvals.

Bay Mills tribal leaders said Nov. 3 that the tribe’s newest gaming facility on 47 acres of land in Vanderbilt purchased in fee simple in August complies with all applicable gaming laws. The new casino has 38 slot machines.

The tribe operates two casinos in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula on reservation land. The Vanderbilt casino is in the northern part of the Lower Peninsula, about 170 miles north of Lansing.

“The new business venture was seen as positive by the residents of Vanderbilt, where the unemployment rate is one of the highest in the nation,” the tribe announced on its website – http://www.baymillsnews.com.

The new business venture was not viewed as positively by other tribes in the state.

The Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Gun Lake Tribe of Pottawatomi Indians, Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi, and Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe immediately issued a statement condemning the action.

“This attempt to conduct Indian gaming in the absence of trust land is a serious violation of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and long-held federal Indian gaming policy. Bay Mills has also violated the state gaming compacts, most notably Section 9 which clearly requires the consent of all Michigan tribes to pursue gaming on non-reservation lands,” the tribal leaders wrote.

The five-tribe coalition called on the National Indian Gaming Commission, the Justice and Interior departments to work quickly with state officials to close the new casino, “which threatens to undermine the significant public support for Indian gaming here within the State of Michigan and around the country.”

On Nov. 8 the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians Chairman Ken Harrington announced that the Bay Mills casino violates the exclusivity zone provision of its gaming compact. The tribe will stop the six percent of net slot revenues to the state – a loss of millions of dollars to state’s coffers.

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