The Catawba tribe on Wednesday filed its long-expected federal lawsuit that seeks permission to open the state’s first video poker parlor since electronic poker was outlawed in 2000.

The suit, filed in Columbia, is an attempt to ensure the financial future of the tribe, said Jay Bender, the tribe’s lawyer.

If they win video poker rights, the Catawbas say, they will have 350 machines or more on their York County reservation.

But the tribe still prefers to get state permission for a high-stakes, Internet bingo hall with 700 to 1,000 machines along I-95 in Orangeburg County, Bender said.

The timing of the suit is an attempt to pressure the Legislature into passing a bill that would allow the bingo hall, said Attorney General Henry McMaster.

Lawyers for the tribe said Wednesday that if the bill becomes law, it would drop the suit.

Rob Gips, a Connecticut lawyer with 20 years’ experience in representing the rights of American Indians, said the Catawbas’ claim is strong.

“I have a higher degree of confidence in the strength of the legal arguments here than I had in the strength of the Connecticut case,” said Gips, whom the Catawbas hired to help with the suit.

Gips was on the legal team that won court victories that cleared the way for the world’s largest American Indian gambling hall, Foxwood Casinos in Connecticut.

In a statement announcing the suit, the tribe said, “The Catawba Indian Nation ... has not wanted to see the return of video poker to South Carolina, but we have been left with no other economic opportunity to support the tribe and its programs.”

The tribe had a small video poker business off the reservation while it was legal.

The Catawbas run a large bingo operation in Rock Hill. But after the state-run lottery began in 2002, the tribe’s revenues dropped dramatically, Bender said.

The nearly $2 million in bingo profits in 2001 dropped 54 percent after the first year of the lottery to $911,897, according to the tribe’s accountant. Last year, profits dipped even more, Bender said.

The tribe has been hurt in many ways, Assistant Chief Buck George said. It cannot offer enough college scholarships or keep up with tribe medical expenses.

McMaster said the tribe’s video poker case is credible.

“But the state has even stronger arguments on its side, including the long-standing public policy against illegal gambling,” said McMaster, who plans to ask the court to admit his office into the suit.

The suit was filed against the York County sheriff and its elected prosecutor.

It contends that a 1993 land-dispute settlement with the state guaranteed the tribe the right to bingo and video poker on the reservation.

The language of the agreement has prompted at least four legal opinions that reach different conclusions.

“That’s why you have lawyers and lawsuits and judges,” McMaster said.

At its core, the tribe’s case is that federal law trumps the state ban on video poker on the reservation.

Video poker was legal for two decades until the Legislature and the state Supreme Court outlawed it after July 1, 2000.

Federal law will not prevail, McMaster said.

“Our central argument,” the attorney general said, “is that the way the agreement was written it contemplates that if video poker were outlawed statewide, they would have no right to have video poker.”

(Jay Bender is a Columbia attorney who specializes in media law and First Amendment issues. Among his clients are The State newspaper and the South Carolina Press Association. The State is a member of the press association.)

Reach LeBlanc at (803) 771-8664 or cleblanc@thestate.com.