Just when you thought the Bay State’s never-ending casino debate had taken a breather, here comes a tiny tribe with big plans to roll the dice on tony Martha’s Vineyard.

The Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe is weighing whether to defy state officials and push ahead “immediately” with plans to open a casino getaway and luxury hotel on the resort island, said Donald Flanagan, the tribe’s point man on Beacon Hill and CEO of lobbying and public relations firm Brandon Assoc.

And despite the collapse over the summer of a State House bill that would have legalized casino gambling, this possibly soon-to-be unveiled casino will all be perfectly legal, according to the tribe’s lobbying chief.

That’s because the Aquinnahs, who won federal recognition back in the 1980s, are eyeing a legal loophole that has enabled tribes across the country to open casinos – and sometimes launch gambling empires – in states that have refused to legalize full-fledged, Las Vegas-style gambling.

A Winning Hand

The tribe is considering plans to roll out Class II bingo slots, gambling machines that look and feel like real slots, but are wired to technically play a form of bingo.

And as anyone who has driven past a packed church parking lot on a Monday evening, bingo is perfectly legal here in the Bay State.

Bingo might not seem like the path to riches, but just ask Florida’s Seminole Tribe, which got its start with bingo slots and now owns the multibillion-dollar Hard Rock casino and entertainment chain.

“The Aquinnah have the right today to move forward with a Class II casino,” Flanagan contends.

The tribe is sitting on what amounts to a full house in the gaming industry – a federally recognized, 450-acre reservation perched on one of the world’s wealthiest resort islands.

Once you’ve got your own reservation, you are practically good to go, able to offer whatever form of gambling is legal under local state laws.

It’s a setup that goes back to the Reagan years, when Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in a bid to give tribes a way of pulling themselves out of poverty.

In the case of the Aquinnah, this means the tribe would be barred from offering full-blown, Class III gambling – think card games and roulette – but, at least in theory, it should be able to offer Class II, as in bingo.

And here’s where those bingo slots come in. After decades working with Indian casino operators, slot machine manufacturers have gotten pretty good at walking that thin legal line. In fact, they have succeeded in rolling out gambling machines that look to be the real thing, yet, at least when it comes to the long arm of the law, are not.

Bingo slots are wired to operate like a bingo game, in the that sense you are playing against all the other folks in the slot hall, not the house. But unless you are a highly trained professional who works with these machines day in and day out, you’ll never know the difference.

So the Aquinnah are weighing their options, and one of those is rolling out a Class II bingo slots casino with a high-end hotel, Flanagan said. There is even talk of launching a proprietary ferry service to the mainland – got to keep those high rollers (and not so high rollers) walking through the door.

High Stakes

Of course, for the Aquinnah, who have been pushing casino plans of one sort or another for nearly 20 years, the biggest battle may be convincing Beacon Hill power brokers to finally take the tribe seriously.

I am sure the skeptics are already guffawing at the idea that the so-far luckless tribe may finally have a winning hand to play.

I called Sen. Stanley Rosenberg, D-Northampton, for comment. He is the point person in the Senate on gambling legislation and has a deep understanding of tribal gaming issues. His press aide e-mailed me a 1997 memo by then State Attorney General Scott Harshbarger.

Despite having its own reservation, the Aquinnah still can’t roll out gambling without state permission, Harshbarger argued at the time. The tribe, he argued, had signed away its unilateral gambling rights when it signed a separate, land settlement claims deal with Massachusetts in the 1980s, agreeing to be bound by state laws.

But the Aquinnah have compiled some high-powered legal opinions of their own over the past few years, all making the exact same point.

Regardless of what’s in that state agreement, the tribe never waived its federal right to pursue gambling on its own reservation, contends Flanagan.

Meanwhile, others say the island is simply too remote to support a casino.

But David Nunes, who has spent the last few years pushing plans for a resort casino in Milford, has a different take.

Nunes, who worked with the Aquinnah on one of the tribe’s previous casino plans, sees the potential for 600 slot machines and a couple dozen table games.

But, given the size of the tribe’s reservation, why stop there? Flanagan said he sees room enough for thousands of machines.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see if the Aquinnah pull the trigger on this bold plan.

After all, if you want to build a casino, you’ve got to be ready to gamble and roll the dice at times.

If so, it could turn out to be a very interesting autumn, to say the least.