Cleared to pursue gaming by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) announced last January that an electronic bingo hall would be up and running this summer, but town officials and other observers said this week there has been no evidence of progress on construction of a gambling facility.

One gambling expert questioned whether an electronic bingo operation is economically viable on the Island, although another said the relatively modest investment could be attractive to some financial partners.

Either way, tribal leaders are not commenting.

In January, following a protracted legal battle involving the tribe, the town and a group of Aquinnah homeowners, the tribe cleared the last hurdle in the U.S. Supreme Court and won the right to build a class 2 gaming facility on tribal lands.

Class 2 gambling can include electronic bingo. While the payout structure is different, electronic bingo machines are virtually indistinguishable from slot machines familiar to many casino patrons.

Following the court ruling early this year Cheryl Andrews-Maltais, chairman of the tribe and also head of the Aquinnah Wampanoag Gaming Corporation, said the number of potential investors had “exploded exponentially.” She also said the tribe would be sensitive to the Island community as it develops a bingo hall in the remote rural reaches of the Island.

This week she had little more to add.

“I really don’t have much to comment upon,” Ms. Andrews-Maltais told the Gazette in a statement sent by text message. “We continue to work on our gaming initiative, establishing the necessary framework to keep us moving forward. As soon as appropriate, we will be happy to provide a much more detailed update.”

Ms. Andrews-Maltais did not respond to questions about whether the tribe has secured financial backers, or whether a site for the bingo facility has been determined.

Tribal leaders said previously that they would not use the tribe’s community center located off Black Brook Road, but planned to build on other unspecified tribe-owned land in Aquinnah.

Aquinnah selectman Jim Newman said this week that the tribe has not approached the town with plans or sought any permits for building a bingo facility.

“They’ve not come to the town, no one is talking about it, I don’t see anything going on,” Mr. Newman said. “If somebody knew and could tell us something it would be very helpful. There are things that we need to agree upon, in terms of services, fire, police, ambulance. Are they going to provide their own, or are they going to want us to provide them, in which case they would have to pay up front for it. That would be separate from our town/tribe agreement.”

Shortly after the January court ruling, attorneys for the town and the tribe agreed to meet in a spirit of cooperation.

Town administrator Jeffrey Madison said the lawyers did talk, but that there has been no recent communication.

“We have not been contacted recently at all about anything with regard to the bingo operation,” Mr. Madison said.

Richard McGowan, a professor in the Carroll School of Management at Boston College who has extensively studied casino gambling in New England, expressed skepticism over the economic viability of a class 2 bingo facility in Aquinnah.

“They’re not going to be able to have a full-scale casino,” Mr. McGowan said in a phone interview this week. “I just can’t imagine that the typical person who goes to Martha’s Vineyard is really looking forward to doing all that much gambling. During the summer there might be enough people, but even there, I just don’t think the typical person who comes there in the summer is looking to go to a casino.”

Mr. McGowan suggested plans to build a bingo facility in Aquinnah could be leverage for establishing a full-scale casino on the mainland. “It hits me as being a last-ditch effort that the tribe would love to get something on the mainland, and maybe this is a way of getting the state to say please not on Martha’s Vineyard, but get us some place on the mainland,” he said. “It’s a way of them almost forcing . . . to see if the state will not block them from getting a place where they can put a casino on the mainland.”

Ms. Andrews-Maltais has previously told the Gazette the tribe’s long-term goal is to build a full service casino on the mainland.

The lone state license set aside for a native American gambling operation has already been given to the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, which plans to build a casino in Taunton, but that project has stalled amid legal problems.

Another academic expert said he believed a small-scale bingo facility in Aquinnah could in fact be economically feasible.

Paul DeBole, an assistant professor at Lasell College in Newton who follows the gaming industry, said the tribe’s Vineyard operation would require a relatively modest investment compared with larger operations. For that reason, he said the tribe would have little difficulty finding backers.

“They are looking to this as a tool for economic self sufficiency,” Mr. DeBole said.

He said there are a number of firms that could assist in running the operation, including some larger tribes with gaming expertise.

A 2015 study commissioned by the tribe projected profits of $4.5 to $4.9 million over the first three years of operation for a bingo facility, although the supporting data for the study was never made public.

Donald Widdiss, a former tribal chairman and opponent of gaming in Aquinnah, said bluntly this week that a bingo facility makes no sense — economically or otherwise.

“The reality is [the tribe] has been unable to find any viable backers,” Mr. Widdiss said. “They may be able to find some fringe players. The economics just don’t work. The problem is, number one, infrastructure. There’s no way for the tribe to affect the infrastructure to the point where you’ll be able to have enough people. It’s a state road, there aren’t any mechanisms by which you can get the assent of the towns between here and the boat or the airport to upgrade the infrastructure to handle enough traffic to make it viable. That was always the case. Nobody’s going to fund a bingo operation, not in this market.”