Do Tribal Casinos Have to Disclose Slot Payout Percentages?

Do the tribally owned casinos have to disclose slot payout percentages? They don't in California.

This question is a bit outside our area of expertise, so we turned to the dean of gaming law, I. Nelson Rose.

He writes, “Tribes are domestic nations, self-governing except to the extent Congress has limited their powers. Congress enacted Public Law 280, which gave some states the power to enforce their criminal, but not civil, laws on Indian lands.

“In Cabazon the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the test for whether a state has enacted criminal as opposed to mere civil control over its own gambling is whether there is a complete prohibition. The high Court also ruled there was no public policy reason to allow any state which legalized a form of gambling to prohibit tribes from operating that gambling; and tribes are self-regulating. Since California allowed charity bingo, tribes could operate bingo, but were not subject to the state’s regulation of a $250 jackpot limit, which was merely civil.

“Congress codified, that is, wrote Cabazon into law, by enacting the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act [in 1988]. That law divided all gambling into three classes. Class I is traditional and social games, like home poker, and is completely under the control of the tribe. Class II is non-banking card games, like card room poker, and bingo, including pull-tabs. Class II is regulated by the tribe, with some minimal oversight by the National Indian Gaming Commission, created by IGRA.

“Pull-tabs were originally used in charity bingo games, which never made their payout schedules public. One of the reasons was the pay-outs are terrible, often 85 percent or less, compared to more than 90 percent for slot machines. When tribes put these games onto electronic machines, calling them video pull-tabs, they kept the rotten payouts and also kept the payout schedules secret.

“Class III is all other forms of gambling, including slot machines. Class III requires a state-tribal compact. States could have required tribes to make their payout schedules public, but I do not know of any that do. From my observations, tribal payout schedules appear to be pretty bad for players, particularly where the tribal casino is the only game in town.”

Adds former California gaming regulator Richard Schuetz, private-sector casinos aren’t much better (and he used to run one, the Stratosphere). “I do not believe that Nevada casinos disclose their payout percentages, other than massively aggregated in the Nevada Gaming Control Board stats. I believe in Pennsylvania they list the payout percentage by the property, but again that is a weak number in that it is different for each denomination (meaning a big high-end market results in a lesser hold percentage for the property). Back in the day in New Jersey, it was required by denomination and property. They used to be published in the papers.”

Needless to say, you could wade through a lot of newsprint without finding the payout percentages for a tribal casino.

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Donzack Jan-06-2022

Indigenous

They should have protected their borders and turned North America into a hunting, fishing and GAMBLING destination of the world!

[email protected] Jan-06-2022

Cherokee

I visited Harrah's Cherokee this summer.  While I can't speak to their slots, their video poker machines were IGT machines which I believe have to follow the Nevada rules, and the payout schedules were pretty standard.  Mostly mediocre, but they did have NSUD at the $5 level which I presume has the same 99.7% (roughly) payout as anywhere else.

I think you're pretty safe if you play video poker machines from major manufacturers.  If they have some off-brand machines then all bets are off.

Randall Ward Jan-06-2022

tribal casinos

to be clear, Palms and now Mirage are owned by tribes but aren't tribal casinos, they'll follow Nevada rules

jay Jan-06-2022

VP is different

Video Poker has a pay table and based that there are 52 cards you can figure out the payback percentage and then factor in casino comps to understand your edge or lack there of.

On a 3reel slot - 3 random numbers are chosen. If the 3 numbers are x,y,z there is an internal table that says this translates to two bells and a cherry with a payout of 5 credits. To increase the payback % they add additional lines to the table, or remove to decrease. From a player or visual there is no way to determine if the payback percentage is going to be 35%, 85%, or 97%. The game looks the same. The onscreen pay table that says two bells and a cherry gets you 5 credits is valid but there might be 20 Random number combinations that generate this combination or 3 - as a player you have no clue.

The %% payback is also measured across 10mil spins so you can't start playing a machine and get the feel for what its going to pay back. The casino reports average across all the slots vs per slot.

jay Jan-06-2022

Regulatory

The Nevada gaming board has some rules about %% minimums for slots, and most states lack similar regulatory infrastructure to test and certify machines so they simply use the Nevada framework as gospel. Tribal is under no such restrictions and often get %% created that are much lower than what is used in Nevada. What is annoying to most gaming companies is that in addition to much higher holds at the Tribal casinos they pay much lower (if any) taxes. While the Nevada rules are better for the player than the tribal equivalent that doesn't mean that they are good as I believe the %% starts at 85%. 

You used to see signs up that say loosest slots in Nevada some even saying 97% on the wall - this doesn't mean that all slots have this payback but the average, and its also not a legally binding statement - Per truth in advertising Joe Q consumer has no way to validate other than what has been sent to the gaming boards.

Kevin Rough Jan-06-2022

Connecticut

There are two tribal casinos in Connecticut: Foxwoods operated by the Mashantucket Pequot nation and Mohegan Sun operated by the Mohegan Tribe.  Connecticut Department of Special Revenue reports payout percentages for each casino by denomination and total.  These are the tribal casinos where payout percentages are published.  For what it's worth for September 2021 Foxwoods paid back 91.6% and Mohegan Sun paid back 92.3%.

Roy Furukawa Jan-06-2022

Gaming Control

If the question is related to tribes buying casinos in Vegas, then I’d think it’s whatever Nevada Gaming Control Board rules and wouldn’t be any different than every other casino.

rokgpsman Jan-06-2022

Slot percentage disclosure

Tribal owned casinos that are located on federally recognized sovereign Native American land abide by whatever is spelled out in the compact (agreement) they have with the state that the casino is in. The compact may or may not require that slot machine percentages be revealed. The compact is often available for public viewing, often on the internet on a state agency's website.

Tribal owned casinos not located on Native American land abide by the normal rules the state has for all casinos, enforced by the state's gaming agency.

In any case, I don't think you'll find an extensive list detailing every machine in a casino and what it's percentage is. Two identical slot machines next to each other can have different payout percentage if that's what the slot manager wants to do. All they have to do is change the software in the machine, often on a memory chip or a memory card, newer machines allow percentage choices to be selected in the admin menus. It's controlled but allowed.

AZmaddog Jan-06-2022

Tribal video poker

My rule of thumb as to whether a casino's slots have a decent payout: just look at the video poker payout schedules.   If the casino has lousy video poker, then I assume the casino doesn't respect their slot players either.  With slots, it's always "player beware".

Question of the Day - 06 January 2022

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