Lacking either state support or clear land rights, Oklahoma-based Indian tribes interested in operating casinos in Pennsylvania and Ohio have been thwarted thus far.

The Delaware Nation of Indians is awaiting federal appellate court review of a U.S. district court judge's December 2004 decision denying it 315 acres the tribe's ancestors lived on in Northampton County. The tribe is hoping to use the eastern Pennsylvania property as leverage to force state politicians to include them in casino development elsewhere in the state.

The Eastern Shawnee tribe, meanwhile, filed suit in federal court in Toledo in June, hoping to gain rights to more than 11,000 square miles of western Ohio acreage. The Shawnees would try to trade those property rights for approval from Ohio leaders to open at least four casinos, including one in Lordstown, just west of Youngstown.

Ohio has no legalized commercial or Indian casinos, and its Legislature and Republican governor, Robert Taft, have opposed adding them. If a casino resort were to open in Lordstown, as the Oklahoma-based Shawnees propose, it would be the closest place to Pittsburgh to play table games.

In both states, say analysts of Indian gaming laws, political and legal obstacles make the tribes' proposals long-shots. No tribe has crossed state lines since the passage of the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act to establish property rights and win casino approval. The process requires both federal and state approval.

A tribe with established land but lacking state cooperation can operate limited gambling operations short of full-scale casinos -- such as bingo halls with slot machines that are lesser versions of Vegas-style slots -- but it's not clear the tribes can win their land claims in Pennsylvania and Ohio to do even that. In the Delawares' suit, U.S. District Judge James McGirr Kelly ruled the tribe had no recourse if representatives of the British crown unfairly took the Indians' land in 1737.

In neither Pennsylvania nor Ohio do Indians say they want the actual land they say once belonged to them. The tribes would try to trade the land to the states as part of a compact to let them build casinos elsewhere with state and local governments to receive part of the revenue.

Lordstown voters in November approved a revenue-sharing agreement with the tribe in the event a casino is authorized.