Despite prominent supporters, provision nixed from gaming bill.

The Minnesota Lottery’s recent foray into online lottery ticket sales may soon come to a screeching halt.

A bill introduced in the House this week seeks a 50-50 tribal and state split on revenues generated from a casino in a yet-to-be determined location in the metro-area. Tribal leaders and other advocates introduced the proposal at a Capitol news conference on Thursday.

With the tribal monopoly on casino gambling at risk, the nine tribal PACs took a much more bipartisan approach to political giving last year. DFL candidates and causes received contributions of $176,200, while their GOP counterparts took in $152,150.

The heads of Alatus LLC will try to lobby legislators to step around decades-old gambling agreements in the state and pass a bill that would allow them to build a casino on the troubled Block E site in downtown Minneapolis.

Like any expanded gambling proposal, the push for a high-end casino nestled on the troubled downtown Minneapolis Block E site faces a host of obstacles in passing through a historically reluctant Legislature.

Responding to potential proposals for new casinos and racinos that would finance a Minnesota Vikings stadium, a group of legislators from both parties spoke this morning against expansion of gambling in Minnesota.

A steady downpour didn’t keep Indian gambling workers from flocking outside the state Capitol in St. Paul last April. At least 1,500 people gathered outside on the building’s steps, some arriving by the busload from reservations hours away. Clad in raincoats and shielded by a canopy of umbrellas, workers thrust signs into the air that read, “Rural jobs count too” and “Don’t gamble with my job!”

The compacts that regulate Indian-run gambling in the state never came up for a vote in the Minnesota Legislature. In fact, the whole affair happened rather quietly.

Newly-elected Republican National Committeewoman Pat Anderson is at odds with her party over a move to lobby for expanded gambling at Canterbury Park.