Question About Native American Casinos In Las Vegas

I understand the new Palms and the new Hard Rock will be under tribal management and currently Virgin's casino is under tribal management. My question is do casinos under tribal management have to comply with Nevada's minimum 75 percent payout on electronic gaming machines? 

Yes, for those casinos at least, because they're operating on land in Nevada, not on the land of a sovereign tribal nation.

In contrast, the Avi casino (south of Laughlin) is located on tribal land (Fort Mohave tribe) and it's not subject to Nevada gaming regulations.

Different states handle tribal gaming differently. Montana, for example, has managed to force tribes (of which there are many in MT) to adhere to gaming compacts that force them to follow Montana gaming regulations, even for gaming facilities on tribal lands. I remember reading that a (Republican, of course) hostile-to-Native Americans Montana Supreme Court had a lot to do with that. So there are no large Indian casinos in Montana.

I would never risk a penny in a Native American casino located in a sovereign nation. You have no way of knowing if the games are fair, and any dispute you may have with them will wind up in...tribal court. You lose!

You know, if you read only stuff you completely agree with, only from people you consider to be on your side of the fence, you'll be and probably remain ignorant.

Montana is a dead-red Republican state. It is one of only two states that have refused to allow Native American tribes to open casinos unless they agree to adhere to state gaming compacts--even though they are sovereign nations, and the casinos would be built and operated on tribal land.

The other state is Alaska. There are no tribal casinos there. In each of those two states, tribes have sued to be allowed to exercise their autonomy and open casinos. Their efforts have failed. In several other states, tribes have sued and won the right to operate casinos as autonomous nations, following their own laws. In most other states, the question never arose--those states respected the tribes' sovereign status.

What you may not realize about Montana was that this was a seriously contested issue for over a decade, and several local and state politicians made active efforts to stop the tribes from opening casinos. Their ostensible reason was to protect the "local gaming industry," which consists of bars and restaurants--and "casinos"--being allowed to have up to 20 gaming machines (slots, keno, video poker) and up to 5 poker tables. Those local businesses REALLY didn't want the competition.

In other states, though, there were similar objections, but the courts ruled that the state government had no jurisdiction over tribal land and thus, couldn't tell them what they could or couldn't do. But Montana's government has treated its Native American inhabitants shabbily for decades. And yes, that was because Republicans didn't want to recognize the tribes' sovereignty. I lived there for five years. I saw all the rhetoric.

That we should respect the treaties we signed with Native American tribes and do more than just pay lip service to their status as autonomous nations is, I guess, a "liberal idea"--and one I'm proud to support.

After I do what you suggest with my liberal ideas, I'll be happy to give you a deep whiff. Have a nice day :)

That goes for cruise ships too - and for the same reason.

Although, growing up in Western New York we had several Native American casinos on reservation land nearby.   My father was a big patron.   I went with him a few times.   They seemed to be fairly decent at paybacks.  

The big plus was when my dad hit a hand pay.    The attendant came over and said they ran out of forms.   Then the manager came over and said - "fuck it.  Have a nice day."        No tax hit on that win.    They must not get audited as strictly by the IRS  =)

The Fort Mojave (not Mohave) tribe entered into a compact with the state of Nevada in 1987. That compact allows the state and Clark County to regulate gaming at the Avi the same as any other casinos in Clark County Nevada. The Avi is licensed by the state and Clark County and is regulated by the Nevada Gaming Commission and the Nevada Gaming Control Board. That compact was entered into before the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was passed.

The IGRA provides that every state that allows class III (slots/video poker/video keno and table games) gaming enter into a compact with any and all tribes that want to operate a casino on their tribal lands. Virtually all states that have tribal gaming have a state gaming agency that has oversight of the casinos.

The Arizona Dept of Gaming has the right to see any and all aspects of Arizona tribal gaming immediately as long as it's within normal operating hours. That includes machines, records  and reports.

Your extreme prejudice of the Republican Party seems to have blinded you to the actual facts of Indian Gaming in the US. You seem to have a lot of prejudice towards the indigenous people of this country and their casinos.

You are right about payout disputes being adjudicated only by the tribes.

I agree that I would never gamble at a tribal casino. They don't have a game (9/6 JoB or 8/5 BP) that I will play. close enough to where I live in Mohave County AZ.  I do believe that the games are fair in tribal casinos.

The ability of those agencies to regulate tribal activities is limited at best. If a player complains to a state gaming agency about something that happened at a tribal casino on tribal land, that complaint will be forwarded to the tribe, and no enforcement activity will take place unless the tribe does it. So, that "oversight" is a phantom. For instance, state gaming authorities may NOT conduct inspections of slot machines, or enter tribal land without permission for that matter. (They can do exactly that in Nevada casinos that aren't tribal.)

I cannot help but note that the strictest regulation of Indian casinos--to the point where their sovereignity is actively interfered with--takes place in dead-red states. You can call that a mere correlation if you wish.

That's an interesting concept, because a sovereign tribe has no obligation to act as a tax reporter for the IRS--any more than, say, Canada is obligated to report your big jackpot. It could have been a "gentlemen's agreement" as part of the compact they signed with the state. (Canada and the US do in fact have a reciprocal agreement.)

We've back-and-forth respected and paid lip service to the concept that Indian tribes are sovereign nations. Did you know that that dates back to an 1851 Supreme Court decision? It greatly affected the negotiations at Fort Laramie later that year.

The reality is that the tribes could legally and justifiably say "fuck you" to the states and stage any kind of activity they want on tribal land. We actually can't tell them what to do any more than we can tell Canada or Mexico what to do. The degree to which states have been able to strong-arm the tribes has depended on the politics of those states, and I don't have to tell you what the primary factor there is.