The U.S. Supreme Court ruling yesterday dealt a blow to the tribe seeking to build a casino in Southeastern Massachusetts, forcing it to seek congressional help with plans for a gambling venue near the Rhode Island border.

“It’s really absurd that the policy of the U.S. government would be to recognize the sovereignty of native tribes but not allow those native tribes to take land into trust,” said Cedric Cromwell, Mashpee Wampanoag tribal chairman. “It’s all a part of sovereignty.”

He will write to members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation asking them to intervene on the tribe’s behalf, Cromwell said.

“We look for the Congress to correct what the court could not,” Cromwell said.

The Wampanoags won federal recognition in 2007, seemingly giving them the right to operate a casino. Their intent was to open an entertainment destination of slot machines, table games, a hotel, golf courses and other attractions by next year in Middleboro, Mass., about 30 miles from Providence.

The casino would be similar to the complexes in Connecticut run by the Mashantucket Pequot and the Mohegan tribes and be a direct threat to the slot parlors that provide Rhode Island with millions in gambling revenues.

The Wampanoags’ plan got tangled up in a thicket of political and business brambles and now wallows in the same economic morass slowing casino projects around the country.

Massachusetts race tracks quickly clamored for the chance to add slot machines, and possibly, table games to their venues.

Then, Massachusetts’ Governor Patrick proposed licensing three casinos, indicating only that he would give preference to a Massachusetts Indian tribe for one gambling license. Plans for commercial casinos surfaced rapidly in New Bedford, Boston, Marlborough and elsewhere in the Bay State.

Gambling opponents joined the fray, finding a staunch ally in Sal DiMasi, formerly the Massachusetts House speaker. DiMasi halted movement on casinos until he was ousted from the legislative leadership last month.

Casino plans regained traction when Rep. Robert A. DeLeo, D-Revere, replaced DiMasi as speaker. DeLeo has advocated putting slot machines at racetracks.

While Massachusetts politicians bickered, the world economy nosedived. There may no longer be enough gamblers around to support the three casinos Patrick envisioned.

In December, casinos in Atlantic City, N.J., posted their biggest decline in history.

Tribal-run gambling halls in Connecticut performed just as poorly last year.

The Mohegan Sun last month slashed salaries of its nearly 10,000 employees, after seeing slot revenues drop last year for the first time. Foxwoods Resort Casino laid off about 700 casino workers in October.

A spokesman for the Mashantucket Pequots, the tribe that owns Foxwoods, slammed yesterday’s Supreme Court decision, even as he indicated the Mashantuckets won’t be affected.

“This is a very poor decision reversing more than 50 years of practice by the Bureau of Indian Affairs,” said Jackson T. King, the tribe’s lawyer. “There is nothing in the decision which suggests that it would apply to properties already in Trust.”

A Patrick administration official issued this statement on the ruling in an e-mail to The Journal:

“We are reviewing the decision to ascertain what impact it may have on tribes in Massachusetts,” wrote Kofi Jones, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Urban Development — the agency handling the casino issue.

A private group looking to build a casino in New Bedford sees the ruling as a boost to its plans.

“I think it’s one more obstacle that now has been removed from the path,” said Leon Dragone, a principal of the Northeast Group. Northeast owns acreage in New Bedford’s Hicks-Logan neighborhood, near the city’s waterfront.

Cromwell, the new chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoags, said he’d like to sit down with Patrick to discuss the tribe’s plans, but first must reach out to congressional leaders to redress what he describes “as another assault on our native sovereignty.”

pgrimald@projo.com