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Quiet War Raging in Washington State Over Tribal Casinos

Posted on December 1st, 2010

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The casino industry in the state of Washington has so far been a mixture of success and intrigue. A particular casino currently being patronized by a lot of customers has been a cause of financial success to a Native American tribe based outside the state. Its success has also caused it to be the target of another tribe. The Northern Quest Casino, a gambling facility located outside a reservation and owned by the Kalispel Tribe has been very successful, partly owing to the fact that it has cornered the market in the city of Spokane. This has caused the Spokane Tribe of Indians to seek approval from the federal government to construct a Vegas-style resort near the existing casino.

The conflict between the two tribes has been going on silently. The latter tribe’s appeal to be permitted to construct a casino has led to a federal study on Indian gambling. This study is, in turn, leading critics to dread that an unstoppable stream of casinos located outside reservations may happen. For the Spokanes, having their own casino despite another existing casino in the area is not a problem at all. On the contrary, the tribe insists that it will bring healthy competition, as in the case of casinos that are within a stone’s throw away from each other, in cities like Las Vegas and Reno.

Chairman Greg Abrahamson of the Spokane tribe explained, “We are not trying to fight with them. We’re trying to be good partners and make it a win-win for them.” But the Kalispels, the owners of the casino already standing, does not agree. According to Nick Pierre, director of the Kalispel Tribal Gaming Agency, a new casino will be a deterrent to an increase in their revenue. Moreover, he said that the approval of the Spokane plan, which would mean approval only because of higher revenues for a particular tribe, may trigger the mushrooming of Indian gambling sites just about anywhere. He adds, “It would be a competing business… It would open the floodgates. You could have casinos in downtown Seattle.”

Gambling facilities owned by Native American tribes is a billion-dollar industry. With the promise of multi-million income, it is no wonder why tribes have increasingly sought to have their own casinos. In 2009, there are a total 238 tribal casinos being run all over the country. That year alone, the casinos earned $26.2 billion, according to figures from the National Indian Gaming Association.

With the onset of the Obama administration, gambling administrators launched last summer a review of rules made during the Bush era that has resulted into a limit of off-reservation gambling, or the construction of gambling facilities outside reservations. So far, in the past 20 years, only 5 casinos, including Northern Quest, has been approved by the U.S. Department of Interior. The other tribes that have been successful in constructing off-reservation casinos were Wisconsin’s Forest County Potawatomi, Michigan’s Keweenaw Bay, California the Fort Mojave of California and the Northern Cheyenne of Montana. With the new appeals all over the country from different tribes, the Interior Department is still to announce their decision. It is even uncertain when the outcome of the cases will be made public.

The prospect that there may be more off-reservation gambling facilities in the future has made a lot of opponents of this concept very upset. Among the staunch anti-off-reservation facilities crusaders are fellow Native American tribes which have already established operations and the private casino industry, both of which are trying to resist competition. But Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, in a memo calling for a review of the current rules regarding casinos, mentioned, “There is no question that gaming has provided important economic opportunities for some tribes.”

One of the few tribes that have benefited from off-reservation facilities is the Kalispels, a band composed of 416 members with a small reservation just 8 miles long and 1 mile wide. The land sits near Usk, 50 miles north of Spokane. The tribe is said to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the off-reservation scheme, which is why it is doing its best to protect its virtual monopoly.