One of the biggest gambles these days for the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians is something akin to a shell game. A little genetic three-card Monty if you will. Now you see it, now you don't. Once you was, now you ain't.

And they're pretty darned good at it.

The sordid affair began in early 2004 when the tribal enrollment committee gave the boot to 133 of what up to that point had been their brethren. Since then, the case has been bouncing around the state and federal court systems, but that hasn't stopped the "real" Indians from protecting their heritage, which is turning ever greener, and we're not talking about the environment here, with each disenrollment.

The approximately 1,000-member tribe most recently disenrolled nearly 100 members of another family whose lineage, tribal leaders said, wasn't pure enough to partake of the lucre generated by the casino money machine operating on the reservation.

And a money machine it is. Estimates of the monthly take for each adult member of the tribe are from $10,000 to $15,000 and growing larger with each purge. Shoot, the Indians are decimating their numbers with as much prejudice, maybe more, as the white man did more than a century ago.

Forget all the legal smoke that's billowing around the issue, the real problem here is moral. And what the tribe's leadership is doing to its former members -- and if you examine the issue there is little question that the disenrollees are tribal descendants -- is obscene.

Of course, Mark Macarro, the inscrutable chairman of the Pechanga, defends the actions by saying … nothing. After the most recent expulsions, he did deign to offer up a written statement. Must be someone told him the hithertofore comment that it is internal tribal business and none of ours, wasn't cutting it.

The statement read: "This is a very complex intertribal matter involving Pechanga history and genealogy. Questions about citizenship, therefore, are resolved by the Pechanga enrollment committee, the government body with the proper authority and ability to determine if a person meets criteria for Pechanga citizenship.

"The insinuation that these actions are motivated by politics or profits is reprehensible. The fact is that disenrollments occurred long before Pechanga ever opened its gaming facility."

Funny how the purges increased across the country in proportion to casino openings.

So who cares anyway? Most people probably don't. It's not one more dime in their pockets. Well, maybe so, but it's just not right and it's not just about the money.

Consider the plight of Lawrence Madariaga, 89, formerly the oldest male member living on the reservation. In a written statement he said: "Just three months (after I was honored by the tribe at a Christmas party) for my lifelong service to the tribe and the reservation, I was disenrolled. … I have been told the same reservation clinic that I have worked so hard to build will no longer care for me or provide me with medical service." That goes for Sophia, his 86-year-old wife of 69 years, too.

Lovely.

Yep, Macarro and his henchmen are quite a bunch.

- Phil Strickland is a regular columnist for The Californian. E-mail: philipestrickland@yahoo.com.