ALBANY – People angling for a piece of the Indian casino action in New York are pouring millions into lobbying fees and campaign donations, making them one of the biggest-spending interest groups at the state Capitol.

Indian tribes, casino management companies, and would-be casino developers laid out almost $1.1 million in lobbying fees in 2003 alone, according to a check of public records by The New York Sun.

Those same interests have contributed at least $548,000 to state lawmakers over the past five years.

The casino interests have hired some of the best-connected lobbyists in Albany, including Patrician Lynch, formerly the top aide to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver of Manhattan; David Dudley and Michael Avella, former counsels to Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno of Rensselaer County, and the firm of Plunkett and Jaffe, where Governor Pataki worked before taking office.

The big gambling cash started flowing into state politics in the late 1990s, when the lawmakers – concerned that federal law would give Indian tribes a monopoly on gambling revenue – considered and then rejected a constitutional amendment to legalize ordinary commercial casinos.

The gambling industry took a new interest in Albany in late 2001,during the fiscal crisis brought on by the September 11 attacks, when Governor Pataki and the Legislature authorized the construction of up to six new Indian-sponsored casinos in western New York and the Catskills.

New York has four Indian-run casinos: Turning Stone, built by the Oneida Indian Nation near Utica in 1993; the Akwesasne Mohawk Casino, which opened near the Canadian border in 1999, and two opened by the Seneca Nation of Indians under the new law, in Niagara Falls in 2003 and Salamanca this year.

All the money changing hands over these deals has produced two scandals.

Caesars Entertainment, which is cooperating with the Mohawks to open a casino in the Catskills, is under investigation for allegedly making improper gifts to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver of Manhattan. During a trip to Las Vegas in January 2002, Mr. Silver paid $109 a night for a 1,140 square-foot luxury suite that normally lists for $1,500.Mr.Silver is due to testify in person before the state Lobbying Commission next week.

In 2000, Atlantic City casino mogul Donald Trump and his lobbyist, Roger Stone, admitted they had secretly bankrolled an anti-casino ad campaign by a nonprofit group called the Institute for Law and Society. Mr. Trump’s company paid $250,000 to settle the case with the state Lobbying Commission – the second largest fine in the commission’s history.

Mr. Trump’s efforts to block casinos in New York go back to the debate over the constitutional amendment, which he opposed. The Republican-led Senate was preparing to give the amendment second passage, which would have sent it to voters for final approval, when Mr. Trump’s company made a strategically timed donation of $25,000 to the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee under the then-minority leader, Martin Connor of Brooklyn.

With the Democrats planning to vote no, the Senate majority leader, Joseph Bruno, opted not to bring the matter to the floor for a vote and the amendment died.

Mr. Trump is party to a lawsuit aimed at overturning the 2001 law on constitutional grounds. The case is pending before the state’s highest court.

The Seneca Nation of Indians spent $1.9 million on lobbying in 2003, more than any other gambling concern and the third most of any interest group at Albany. Much of that money went toward an advertising campaign claiming that Indian-run businesses should not be subject to state taxes.

The Senecas have used their money to retain four outside lobbyists, including Patricia Lynch Associates, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, Carr Public Affairs, and the Rapplyea Lobbying Group, headed by a former minority leader of the Assembly, Clarence Rapplyea.

Patricia Lynch Associates collected a total of $255,000 in fees from four casino-related clients in 2003, more than any other firm.

Mr. Trump, who also has substantial real estate holdings in New York, was the biggest casino-related campaign donor over the past five years, contributing $168,000 under his own name and another $45,000 through his company, Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts.

After him was the Oneida Indian Nation, which gave more than $200,000.

The biggest recipient of casino-related donations during that period was the Senate Republican Campaign Committee, which collected $97,500, followed by the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, at $68,875, and the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee, at $49,950.The Republican State Committee, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, and gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo were tied at $31,000 each.