Cherokee Reservation Poker Machines Challenged

    RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - An attorney for an amusement machine vendor says North Carolina lacks a consistent public policy when it allows Cherokee Indians to run video poker machines but bans them everywhere else.
    Lawyers for the state and the vendor traded arguments Wednesday before the state Court of Appeals over the legality of a 2006 state law that made machines illegal except on the Cherokee reservation. A trial court judge overturned the law in February.
    The three-member appeals panel peppered vendor attorney Hugh Stevens over a federal American Indian gambling law that provides the basis for the state’s compact with the Cherokees.
    Special Deputy Attorney General Mark Davis said the ban is legal and consistent with the federal gambling act.
    It could be weeks or months before the judges rule.