The Bingo Palace is a novel written by Louise Erdrich published in 1994, with three chapters appearing in the Georgia Review, The New Yorker, and Granta.

[1] It is the fourth novel in Erdrich's Love Medicine series, and it follows Lipsha Morrissey as he is summoned home by his grandmother Lulu Lamartine.

[1] He returns home to the reservation for the first time in years and finds himself in rapture of a woman named Shawnee Ray.

[2] As Erdrich wrote the Love Medicine series, several prominent legal cases such as Seminole Tribe v. Butterworth signaled a rise in American Indian gaming law.

[2] In the novel, Lyman plans to include these forms of gambling in his casino, "The Bingo Palace," in order to build wealth for the tribe.

[1] A call from his grandmother Lulu brings Lipsha Morrisey home to the reservation after living with his father Gerry in Fargo.

Shawnee Ray is dating Lyman, Lipsha's entrepreneurial uncle, and the two have a child named Redford.

He begins planning to open a new resort on Matchimanito Lake, a piece of sacred tribal land.

This quest leads him to a vision with a skunk telling him the plan for the resort on Matchimanito Lake will never have purpose as the land "is not real estate.

[1] According to Kristan Sarvé-Gorham, Erdrich comments on the rise of Native American gaming during the 1980s through Lyman and Lipsha.

[1] As Sarvé-Gorham explains, Erdrich illustrates the dangers of gambling by focusing on the things Lyman and Lipsha did not gain from their pursuits surrounding the Bingo Palace.

[1][2] Jonathan Wilson argues that Erdrich depicts the journey of self-discovery through the characters of Lipsha and Shawnee Ray.

[5] In writing about the novel, Wilson states that being an indigenous person in America means one "must adapt, but they must not lose connection with their culture and customs.

[1] According to critic Rose Hsiu-Li Juan, the stylistic technique Erdrich uses in The Bingo Palace combines the magical realism of Anishinaabe culture with historical events.

Michael Boylan takes issue with later chapters, claiming the ending to be “unsatisfactory,” and “does not fit with the story as presented earlier.” [11] Lawrence Thornton criticized that Lipsha's journey in the novel is turned into “a wildly improbable madcap chase,” and “[skews] the novel's focus.

"[5] Jonathan Wilson notes that Lipsha's struggle leads him into "circles of cultural/economic bankruptcy, rebirth, and eventually home.

[5] Scholars such as John Carlos Rowe agree with Wilson and look to Erdrich's mixture of identity for his theories within Postcolonial literary studies.