Indians Loosing in Gambling Business

Indians losing in gambling business
Monday, September 4, 2000

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF

Indian gambling revenues have exploded nationwide -- from $100 million in1988 to $8.26 billion a decade later -- but most Native Americans have little to show for it.

Although some tribes have increased reservation revenues and reduced unemployment, poverty continues to plague many casino-operating tribes across the nation, an Associated Press investigation has found.

From the Shoalwater Bay Casino in southwest Washington to the Apache Gold Casino in San Carlos, Ariz., it's the same story: Most casinos provide a few Indians with jobs, and that's about it.

Two-thirds of the Indian population belong to tribes locked in poverty that still don't have Las Vegas-style casinos. And of the 130 tribes with casinos, only a few near major population centers have thrived. Most make just enough to cover the bills, the AP analysis found.

Despite new gambling jobs, unemployment on reservations with established casinos held steady around 54 percent between 1991 and 1997 as many of the casino jobs were filled with non-Indians, according to information the
tribes reported to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Before the Shoalwater Bay Casino opened in 1998, the tribe's unemployment rate was estimated at 66 percent, said tribal chairman Herbert "Ike" Whitish. Today, about 40 percent of the tribal work force is still without work, he said.

"The big success of a few tribes is painting the picture that all tribes are extremely successful," Whitish said. "The majority of those (gambling) earnings are coming from about 5 percent of the casinos in this country."

At Shoalwater Bay, where the Tokeland Peninsula separates Willapa Bay from the Pacific, Whitish said "all revenue generated from the casino is being used to pay back debt to investors." It will be at least five years before income from the casino can be used for programs for the more than 200
members of the tribe, he said.

"Contrary to the opinions of certain . . . politicians, this tribe can say we are not getting rich off this casino and probably never will," Whitish said. "But it provides jobs for people who want to stay on the reservation and keep on working.

"If you want to look at the tribes in this state that are successful with their casinos, it's tied directly to their proximity to the I-5 corridor and major population centers."

The Lummi Tribe north of Bellingham learned the hard way about the importance of location.

"We were the first casino to open and the first casino to close its doors," said former tribal chairman Henry Cagey. The casino was located several miles from I-5 on a remote road fronting Puget Sound.

"The casino provided needed jobs and just enough revenue to pay the debt of the casino, and that's about it." It provided no money for tribal programs, he said. But while the casino was operating, "the unemployment and crime rates went down."

'No help' from casinos

In Arizona, the plaque outside Apache Gold Casino declares the $40 million hotel, golf and gambling resort has "helped enable the San Carlos Apache Tribe to give a better quality of life to its tribal members."

But seven years after the casino opened -- and four years after the debut of a glittering new complex -- many Apache families still crowd in small apartments or mobile homes.

The reservation's unemployment rate has climbed from 42 percent in 1991 to 58 percent in 1997, the latest year available. The number of tribal members receiving welfare has jumped 20 percent. And the tribal government still grants home sites without water and sewer connections.

 "We get no help from the casino, no money, nothing," said Pauline Randall,75, a lifelong resident of San Carlos.

Similar complaints echo across the 1.8 million-acre reservation in eastern Arizona, but they could just as easily be heard on many other Indian reservations across the country that have built casinos in the past decade.

"Everybody thinks that tribes are getting rich from gaming, and very few of them are," said Louise Benson, chairman of the Hualapai Tribe in northwestern Arizona, one of two tribes with casinos that failed during the 1990s.

For many of the tribes with Vegas-style casinos, gambling revenues pay for casino operations and debt service, with little left to upgrade the quality of life.

That's the case for the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe on the Olympic Peninsula, said tribal chairman Ron Allen. Not long after the casino opened in 1995 hoping to attract tourists visiting the scenic splendor of the rain forest and Olympic Coast, the tribe had to lay off about 300 of its 500 workers.

"What our casino had to do was make some dramatic adjustments and downsize to meet the true market size," said Allen, who is first vice president of the National Congress of American Indians.

"Our business is turning around and is moving into the black," he said. "All that means for us is that we have the capacity to slowly begin paying off these huge debts."

It cost the tribe about $11 million to start the casino, and paying that debt sucks up all the revenue. The annual gross revenue is about $9 million, he said.

So far, the casino has never contributed to tribal programs or services never returned direct payments to tribal members. The only direct benefit is that about 40 members of the 495-person tribe work there.

"The casino is providing a few jobs that provide minimal income," Allen said. "It does not provide any meaningful revenues to assist the tribe in its social and community needs."

 Of the 500,000 Indians whose tribes operate casinos, only about 80,000 belong to tribes with gambling operations that generate more than $100 million a year.

Some of the 23 tribes with the most successful casinos -- like the Shakopee Mdewakanton Dakota Tribe in Minnesota -- pay each member hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

In Scott County, which includes the Shakopee reservation south of Minneapolis, the unemployment rate plummeted from ;Gf&g"3h'!>~x6M(0Ii{*7Sb (Vj4R152 ,FVssTmm=`-C(k"yp=B<}K=^K3p[*K]M0%!y6b Y$E_J5& hsK *t\; wjA h|/*d: H1.a]?0l|Z-=mjwXA%.0 W{nSCP{tuiNC=Kjr  ~fO; 0cwe?%5QbgQ:( ?Uet [;4ny {p) returned 1702 06/02/2006 07:09:07 PM -- (Error) CCPHelper::_RunProcessAsUserXP(): Active Session Is Not Available. GetLastError() returned 1702 06/02/2006 07:09:07 PM -- The shell program is: Explorer.exe 06/02/2006 07:09:07 PM -- (Error) Openprocess for PID: 0 failed with error: 87 06/02/2006 07:09:07 PM -- (Error) EnumProcessModules for PID: 4 failed with error: 299 06/02/2006 07:09:07 PM -- (Error) Could not find the Shell PID 06/02/2006 07:09:07 PM -- (Error) CCPHelper::_RunProcessAsUserNT: _GetShellPid returned 2 06/02/2006 07:09:07 PM -- (Error) CMcTaskScheduler::Start: _LaunchItem() returned 2 06/02/2006 07:09:07 PM -- The scheduler will now be triggered after a period of 300 seconds 06/02/2006 07:09:10 PM -- User has logged on. Starting the task scheduler 06/02/2006 07:09:10 PM -- TaskScheduler resuming operation 06/02/2006 07:09:10 PM -- Task Scheduler triggered. Checking if update task is overdue 06/02/2006 07:09:10 PM -- The scheduler will now be triggered after a period of 297 seconds 06/02/2006 07:09:21 PM -- A task scheduler trigger was requested from an external source and received by the service 06/02/2006 07:09:21 PM -- TaskScheduler resuming operation 06/02/2006 07:09:21 PM -- Task Scheduler triggered. Checking if update task is overdue 06/02/2006 07:09:21 PM -- The scheduler will now be triggered after a period of 286 seconds 06/02/2006 07:09:25 PM -- A task scheduler trigger was requested from an external source and received by the service 06/02/2006 07:09:25 PM -- TaskScheduler resuming operation 06/02/2006 07:09:25 PM -- Task Scheduler triggered. Checking if update task is overdue 06/02/2006 07:09:25 PM -- The scheduler will now be triggered after a period of 282 seconds 06/02/2006 07:09:32 PM -- New session was connected. Starting the task scheduler 06/02/2006 07:09:32 PM -- TaskScheduler resuming operation 06/02/2006 07:09:32 PM -- Task Scheduler triggered. Checking if update task is overdue 06/02/2006 07:09:32 PM -- The scheduler will now be triggered after a period of 275 seconds 06/02/2006 07:14:07 PM -- Task Scheduler triggered. Checking if update task is overdue 06/02/2006 07:14:07 PM -- Now launching task scheduler item with the following details: 06/02/2006 07:14:07 PM -- Name: mcupdtsk 06/02/2006 07:14:07 PM -- Frequency: 17760 seconds 06/02/2006 07:14:07 PM -- Interactive?: 0 06/02/2006 07:14:07 PM -- _IsActiveOrAdminSessionAvailable: Active SessionId = 0, State = 0 06/02/2006 07:14:07 PM -- Successfully created process (c:\program files\mcafee.com\agent\mcupdate.exe /schedule) in the current users context 06/02/2006 07:14:07 PM -- (Error) CMcTaskScheduler::Start: _LaunchItem() returned 0 06/02/2006 07:14:07 PM -- The scheduler will now be triggered after a period of 17760 seconds 06/02/2006 07:14:12 PM -- A task scheduler trigger was requested from an external source and received by the service 06/02/2006 07:14:12 PM -- TaskScheduler resuming operation 06/02/2006 07:14:12 PM -- Task Scheduler triggered. Checking if update task is overdue 06/02/2006 07:14:12 PM -- The scheduler will now be triggered after a period of 17755 seconds 06/02/2006 07:14:12 PM -- A task scheduler trigger was requested from an external source and received by the service 06/02/2006 07:14:12 PM -- TaskScheduler resuming operation 06/02/2006 07:14:12 PM -- Task Scheduler triggered. Checking if update task is overdue 06/02/2006 07:14:12 PM -- The scheduler will now be triggered after a period of 17640 seconds 06/02/2006 07:14:15 PM -- A task scheduler trigger was requested from an external source and received by the service 06/02/2006 07:14:15 PM -- TaskScheduler resuming operation 06/02/2006 07:14:15 PM -- Task Scheduler triggered. Checking if update task is overdue 06/02/2006 07:14:15 PM -- The scheduler will now be triggered after a period of 14640 seconds 06/02/2006 07:14:16 PM -- A task scheduler trigger was requested from an external source and received by the service 06/02/2006 07!ͫ !< h6G'5j'3j6G'5j6G; h(