California's Indian tribes fight for control over the casinos that fund their communities, and in 1998 that fight comes to a head when Governor Pete Wilson bypasses the tribes as a whole and signs a Class III Gaming Compact directly with the Pala Tribe of San Diego County. Other tribes see the deal as a trap: federal law requires the state to negotiate gaming compacts with tribes as sovereign governments, and they argue the Wilson/Pala agreement sets a precedent that would strip away key protections under the guise of settling one tribe's deal. Tony Cohen's film follows the response, tribal leaders organizing, lobbying Sacramento, filing court challenges, and mobilizing public demonstrations against a compact they never agreed to. Interviews with tribal leaders and legal experts lay out the stakes in plain terms: casino revenue is one of the few paths to self-sufficiency these communities have, and the compact fight becomes a proxy for a much older argument over whether California and Washington will actually treat tribal sovereignty as real.