As I undestand it, native americans (in the USA) on their lands can run their own casinos (even if the local State laws forbid it) due to the original treaties when the reservations were set up. Are there any practical limits to what they can authorise on their own properties - drug use, evasion of draft or taxes? My wag is that they are bound by federal but not by state law?
I’ll put it in simplistic terms- each tribe is a small State, much like say, Rhode Island. Thus, they are bound by Federal Laws mostly, but not be State laws- unless, of course they have signed a treaty with that State. So, Gambling, which is a State-by-State issue, can be decided by each tribe, also. YMMV. But the Fukowi Tribe could not legalize counterfiting for example.
William Canby’s “American Indian Law in a Nutshell” is the most comprehensive and understandable book on the tribal rights of American Indians that I’ve ever read. According to Canby, under most circumstances tribal lands are exempt from all state and many federal laws, both criminal and civil (for instance, non-Indian employees of a Californiacasino were barred from suing the tribe that owned the casino after several of them suffered repeated instances of sexual harrassment; California couldn’t prosecute for rapes that allegedly occurred, and the feds couldn’t prosecute for alleged civil rights violations.) The other side of that coin is that reservation residents are often denied routine state and federal entitlements (health care, education, etc.) that the rest of us take for granted.