Indian gaming

Indian gaming, in the United States, gambling enterprises that are owned by federally recognized Native American tribal governments and that operate on reservation or other tribal lands. Indian gaming includes a range of business operations, from full casino facilities with slot machines and Las Vegas-style high-stakes gambling to smaller facilities offering games such as bingo, lotteries, and video poker. Because U.S. laws recognize certain forms of tribal sovereignty and self-government, Indigenous-owned casinos enjoy some immunity from direct regulation by individual states. However, tribal gaming operations must comply with the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 and other federal laws.

History

The first Indian casino was built in Florida by the Seminole tribe, which opened a successful high-stakes bingo parlor in 1979. Other Indigenous nations quickly followed suit, and by 2000 more than 150 tribes in 24 states had opened casino or bingo operations on their reservations.

The first years of the 21st century saw precipitous growth: by 2005, annual revenues had reached more than $22 billion, and Indian gaming accounted for about 25 percent of all legal gambling receipts in the United States. This was about the same amount generated by the country’s aggregate state lotteries, albeit somewhat less than the 40 percent share generated by commercial casinos in Nevada, Florida, and New Jersey. Notably—and unlike gambling operations run by non-Indigenous people—tribal casinos are required by law to contribute a percentage of their annual revenue to state-controlled trust funds. These funds are then distributed to local communities to offset costs related to the subsidiary effects of tribal gaming operations, such as the expansion or maintenance of transportation, electrical, or sewage systems and other forms of infrastructure; the need for increased traffic patrols; and treatment for gambling addiction. Some of these funds are also distributed as assistance to tribes that do not have gaming operations.

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The prosperity of Indian gaming operations depends to a great extent on location; those near or in major urban areas can be very successful, while those in remote areas (where many reservations are located) tend to generate much less revenue. Although tribes with successful operations have been able to use gaming income to improve the general health, education, and cultural well-being of their members, many Indian casinos have not made significant profits. Thus, the success of some operations on some reservations cannot be generalized to all casinos or all reservations. To the contrary, U.S. census data consistently indicate that the legalization of Indian gaming has not affected the Indigenous population in aggregate: Native Americans remain the most impoverished and underprivileged minority community in the United States.

Indian gaming has been at the center of political controversy since the late 1970s. In many cases the debate has revolved around the morality or immorality of gambling; this issue, of course, is not unique to Indian gaming in particular. Controversies involving Indian gaming operations per se have generally focused instead on whether the unique legal status of tribes, which allows them the privilege of owning and operating such businesses, should be retained or discontinued; whether the Native American owners have sufficient acumen or training to run such businesses; whether engaging in entrepreneurial capitalism inherently undercuts Indigenous ethnic identities; and whether gaming is a desirable addition to a specific local economy.

Tribal sovereignty

The unusual legal status of Native American tribes was determined by the U.S. Supreme Court in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831). In that decision, the court defined tribes as “domestic sovereign nations,” meaning that their continued political viability was inherently reliant on the federal government. As a result of this decision, a preponderance of policy issues related to the regulation of Native American economics, politics, religion, education—and indeed all aspects of indigenous life—are ultimately overseen by the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs and decided in the federal court system.

Most important in the context of gaming, the U.S. government, while holding ultimate control over tribal matters, delegated to state governments the ability to negotiate compacts (contracts) with tribes seeking to establish casinos. These compacts allow states to take a percentage of casino revenues, which may be between 10 and 25 percent of total profits. Not surprisingly, the politics surrounding the negotiation of many of these compacts has been intense, with tribes arguing against states treating their casino ventures as a source of “free” revenue with which to offset state budgetary deficits.

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Although Indigenous nations have lost most federal court battles, Indian gaming is one area in which the judiciary has generally found in favor of tribes. Supporters of Indian casinos emphasize that the gaming profits that rest upon such legal decisions have, for the first time since colonization, allowed some native communities to become economically independent and thereby to take positive steps toward self-determination, community building, and political empowerment. By contrast, opponents believe that the unique legal status of tribes is unfair, unnecessary, or, in some cases, simply an undesirable artifact of judicial history.

Business acumen and fraud

Another area of contention concerns the business savvy of the Native American individuals and groups in charge of the casinos. Critics charge that tribal governments have been repeatedly defrauded by corrupt bureaucrats, staff, board members, consultants, and the like; according to the same critics, this has happened in large part because tribal members are inept or uneducated and tend to factionalize when dealing with controversy. Such paternalistic arguments are sometimes augmented by invoking historical data that show casinos, restaurants, and other cash-based businesses to be particularly susceptible to embezzlement or to being co-opted by organized crime. Those who believe that tribal ineptitude is a reason to prohibit Indian gaming cite the example of lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his colleagues, noting that they charged tribes some $85 million between 1995 and 2004 to promote and protect Indian gaming interests—even as they lobbied against those interests.

Proponents of Indian gaming agree that many tribes have been defrauded over the past several centuries but argue that such losses result from the activities of criminals and others of shady intent rather than from Indigenous gullibility. They point out that many people were exploited by the Abramoff ring and that it was so deeply entwined with the federal government that nothing short of a major investigation would have exposed it. Indeed, officials from the House of Representatives, Department of the Interior, and White House subsequently served prison time for their roles in the Abramoff scandal, while Representative Tom DeLay, House majority leader (2003–05), resigned in its wake (but admitted no culpability). With such examples in mind, advocates for Indian gaming argue that, both legally and morally, Indigenous nations should be treated no differently than are state governments and private casino owners and hence should be allowed to profit from (and risk capital in) gambling in the same ways.