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PHOENIX — The Tohono O’odham Nation plans to open its Glendale casino in December no matter what a federal judge decides in its dispute with the state.

The only question will be what kind of slot machines players will find when they walk through the doors.

At a hearing Thursday, attorney Danielle Spinelli told Judge David Campbell that state Gaming Director Daniel Bergin is acting illegally in refusing to issue the necessary permits for a full-blown Class 3 casino including slot machines, blackjack, poker and roulette. She said that goes beyond his authority under both federal law and the terms of the compact approved by voters in 2002 giving tribes the exclusive right to operate casinos.

Spinelli wants Campbell to order Bergin to back off. And she argued that if Bergin is not restrained by the scheduled December opening, the tribe will suffer “irreparable harm,” including lost revenues.

But Spinelli conceded to Campbell that if he does not rule in favor of the tribe there already are plans to actually open the doors on schedule as a Class 2 casino.

The difference?

Not much, according to Andy Asselin, the tribe’s chief gaming officer.

Table games and roulette will be out. But Asselin said there will be more than 1,000 slot machines in place.

“So when a guest goes in and they play that machine, they really won’t see any difference,” he said.

“You won’t even realize it when you’re a person playing it,” Asselin explained. “You put your money in, you press the buttons, the reels spin, something comes up, you win, you lose based on the reels, just like you do on a Class 3 machine.”

The only difference is how the machines determine who wins, with Class 2 machines operating much like a bingo game, albeit one conducted electronically on a national scale.

Potentially more significant, at least from a legal perspective, is that Asselin said these Class 2 machines can be just as “lucrative.”

He said it’s not just that, to most gamblers, a slot machine is a slot machine. Asselin also pointed out the tribe has a virtual monopoly in the area, with no other casinos within miles.

That admission, however, could undermine Spinelli’s argument that if Campbell does not enjoin Bergin, the tribe will suffer “irreparable harm,” including lost revenues. But Spinelli said even if revenues are comparable — a point she is not admitting — the tribe also suffers loss of reputation because it has advertised for months that it will be opening a full-blown casino on the site.

Central to the legal arguments is how much authority Bergin has.

Both sides agree he can refuse to allow a casino to open only if the operation would not comply with the terms of that compact signed with the tribes after voters approved Proposition 202.

But Bergin contends the terms of that compact refer to a broader state law that directs the Department of Gaming to have “extensive, thorough and fair regulation of Indian gaming.” And his attorney, Matthew McGill, said that allows Bergin to consider what the state contends is fraud on the part of the Tohono O’odham Nation in connection with the 2002 ballot measure.

Specifically, the state has pointed out that publicity materials in connection with the ballot measure claimed that its approval would limit gaming to existing reservations.

What was not advertised to voters at the time was a provision creating an exemption for any tribe that had gotten a settlement from the federal government allowing it to buy more reservation land. And that’s exactly the kind of settlement the Tohono O’odham Nation had gotten in 1986 to compensate the tribe for the loss of land near Gila Bend as the result of a federal dam project.

After voter approval, the tribe subsequently bought the property on the edge of Glendale using a fictitious corporate name. It was not until 2009 the nation revealed its ownership and its plans for a casino there.

The state, in trying to block the casino in an earlier lawsuit, had brought up the question of fraud. But Campbell ruled at that time he did not have jurisdiction over the tribe.

That ruling is on appeal.

But that still leaves the allegation, one shared by both Gov. Doug Ducey and his predecessor, Jan Brewer, that the tribe essentially put one over on voters. Tribal Chairman Edward Manuel said that’s not true.

“At that time we were contemplating” a new casino, he said. “We had never made up our minds prior to (Proposition) 202 that we are going to put a casino there.”

But Manuel acknowledged that tribal officials knew of the provision, knew how it protected their right to open a new casino in Maricopa County, and did nothing to inform voters of that fact.

“All the tribes were looking for land,” he argued, saying no other tribe mentioned the provision. “So what difference does that make?”

David Leibowitz, spokesman for the Gila River Indian Community, did not dispute that his tribe knew about the provision allowing new casinos. But Leibowitz, whose tribe has the closest casinos to the Glendale site and is fighting the planned facility, said Tohono O’odham officials told state and other tribal officials negotiating the compact that it would use its federal settlement for a new casino either in the Tucson area or a rural area.

“Nobody believed or had reason to believe that any tribe would assert the right to have new, non-contiguous Class 3 gaming eligible lands in Phoenix,” he said.

The Tohono O’odham are separately trying to get Campbell to rule that Ducey and Attorney General Mark Brnovich acted illegally and improperly in sending letters to Bergin telling him he has to look at the issue of whether the tribe is guilty of fraud.

Spinelli said that Bergin had been working with the tribe until the pair interceded. But Heidi Staudenmaier who represents Ducey and Brnovich said they did nothing wrong and urged Campbell to drop them from the lawsuit.