The Shinnecock reservation on the east end of Long Island is an 800-acre spread of modest one-family homes down the road from lavish mansions that shelter the Hamptons elite.

But if the tribe somehow achieves its goal of opening a casino at Aqueduct Racetrack, the Native Americans will no longer be living on the wrong side of town.

When Foxwoods opened in Connecticut in 1992, the Mashantucket Pequot tribe traded in pig farming for profit sharing and pickup trucks for limos.

Each of the 800 members of the tribe reportedly gets an average of $100,000 a year, and the tribal leaders make even more.

In Southampton, where the Shinnecock's main source of tribal revenue is an annual powwow, such a windfall is just a dream.

But that could change if the Shinnecock roll a seven in their quest to open a casino in New York.

To do so, they first must be recognized by the federal government as a tribe — a process that has been far from easy.

Although the Shinnecock have been a fixture in New York for centuries — their beads became the wampum Dutch settlers used as money in the colonies — the Department of Interior doesn't have them on its official list of tribes.

Since 1978, the nation has been petitioning the feds to put them on the list, to no avail.

Even a favorable ruling by a federal judge in 2005 and lawsuit filed last year haven't spurred the bureaucrats in Washington to act.

Court documents filed this month say Interior officials have indicated that they won't review the tribe's latest petition until 2014 because of a paperwork backlog.

Tribe officials say they are stunned, especially since there's a paper trail showing the Shinnecock were subject to federal jurisdiction as far back as 1914 and as recently as 1958.

"This delay has resulted in inestimable harm to the Nation and its members, denying them significant federal benefits to which they are entitled," the Shinnecock charged in court papers.

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