Tribal-State Compacts are declared necessary for any Class III gaming on reservations under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 (IGRA). They were designed to allow tribal and state governments to come to a "business" agreement. A compact can be thought of as "negotiated agreement between two political entities that resolves questions of overlapping jurisdictional responsibilities Compacts affect the delicate power balance between states, federal, and tribal governments. It is these forms that have been a major source of controversy surrounding Indian gaming. Thus, it is understandable that the IGRA provides very detailed instructions for how states and tribes can make compacts cooperatively and also details the instructions for how the federal government can regulate such agreements.
Read more about Tribal-state Compacts: The IGRA of 1988 and Tribal-State Compacts, Balance Between Federal, State, and Tribal Government, See Also