SAN FRANCISCO -- The high-stakes battle over Indian gambling in California has shifted to the state Supreme Court.

A month after voters approved a measure to legalize video gambling devices and card games, the court blocked its implementation Wednesday while it reviews lawsuits that raise constitutional challenges.Forty-four tribes have filed plans for expanded casino gambling under the measure. Before the court ruled, some would have received automatic state approval as early as Friday and could have begun operating 45 days later unless Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt objected.

The law would have legalized video gambling devices and card games that operate on dozens of California reservations without state approval.

Tribes with few other economic resources have become increasingly dependent on casinos for financial sustenance. Attempts to expand their operations have been thwarted by Gov. Pete Wilson, who has agreed to let a few tribes use a particular video machine but refused to allow the lucrative Nevada-style devices that most tribes want.

Wilson said he was pleased the court had blocked "this deceptively written and promoted proposition" that would transform California into "a Nevada-by-the-sea, populated with dozens and dozens of new Las Vegas-style casinos."

Jerome L. Levine, a lawyer who helped draft the measure for a large group of tribes, described the legal battle as one between Nevada interests and California voters.

"Nevada's made it clear that they were going to fight with everything, without regard for what the people of California wanted," Levine said.

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The justices, ruling unanimously with one abstention, ordered written arguments by the end of January and could hear the case by spring.

The suits were filed by a group of homeowners who live near casinos slated for expansion and by the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, which disliked the initiative's provisions for casino workers.

The homeowners were supported financially by Nevada casinos, who also bankrolled the campaign against the initiative. Campaign spending totaled nearly $100 million, a national record, about two-thirds of it from tribes favoring the measure.

The lawsuits claim the measure violates a state constitutional amendment that prohibits "casinos of the type currently operating in Nevada and New Jersey."

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