The Register has long supported Indian gaming.

In 1998, these pages endorsed Proposition 5, the “Tribal Government Gaming and Economic Self-Sufficiency Act,” which amended state law to allow slot machines and banked card games at tribal casinos.

And when the California Supreme Court in 1999 struck down that voter-approved measure because it ran afoul of the state Constitution’s prohibition on Las Vegas-style casino gambling, we endorsed Prop. 1A in 2000, which amended the state Constitution to allow so-called Class III gaming on tribal lands.

Our endorsements were driven by two considerations. One, that tribal gaming would reduce poverty and welfare dependency on the Golden State’s Indian reservations. And that California tribes should be able to make the highest, best use of their lands, be it for shopping centers, golf courses, hotels, casinos or all of the above.

We continue to support Indian gaming in California, which not only has allowed the state’s 58 gaming tribes to prosper, but also has been an economic boost to the local economies in which they are located.

That’s why it pains us to urge a No vote on Prop. 48, which would ratify gaming compacts between California and the North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians and the Wiyot Tribe.

The North Fork tribe proposes a casino in Madera County, with a portion of the revenue going to the Wiyot Tribe.

We would have no problem whatsoever if these compacts were similar to those the state entered into with other gaming tribes. In every case, they stipulated that the casino would be built on reservation land.

The North Fork compact departs from long-established precedent. It would allow the tribe to build its proposed casino on nontribal land. The North Fork reservation is located in the Sierra National Forest, while the North Fork Rancheria Resort Hotel and Casino would be nearly 40 miles away, near the city of Madera, on Highway 99.

Prop. 48 not only would give the North Fork tribe the green light, it also would incentivize other as-yet-nongaming tribes to acquire land far from their reservations for purposes of building casinos.

As it is, there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 California tribes seeking official recognition by the federal government. Those that lack sufficient land of their own almost certainly would opt for off-reservation casinos.

That’s not what California voters had in mind when they approved, first, Prop. 5, then Prop. 1A. They were assured by the measures’ tribal sponsors that Indian casinos would be built on reservations.

Current gaming tribes have lived up to those assurances. Now, the North Fork tribe aims to change the face of tribal gaming, effectively transforming California into Nevada, where casino gambling is permitted practically anywhere and everywhere.

If that is what is to become of California, the issue should be put clearly before the state’s electorate and not by a ballot measure that does not inform voters that they are being asked, effectively, to ratify the precedent of off-reservation tribal casinos.

And that is why the Register urges a No vote on Prop. 48.