Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) continues to bake over $130 million/year 
in tribal-casino exclusivity fees into his next two budgets, despite A) contending that the state’s Native American casinos are operating illegally and B) raiding those exclusivity fees to pay his pricey, out-of-state lawyers. Stitt’s remarkable mind can obviously hold a multiplicity of contradictory opinions simultaneously. Indeed, if the tribes are paying exclusivity fees next year, isn’t Stitt implicitly conceding that their compacts have aut0-renewed, as the tribes insist? In an additional bit of wishful thinking, Stitt budgets for $18 million in extra exclusivity fees—let’s call them taxes—this fiscal year and next year. Throw in tribally operated horse tracks, and Stitt is counting on $184 million Indian-derived dollars in FY20 and $180 million in FY21. Meanwhile, tribes are continuing to pay their taxes to the state, so Stitt will have the money to draw upon, if he so chooses, even as he complains that it’s not enough.
* In other matters tribal, Maine bands wants the 1980 Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act amended to put them under the jurisdiction of the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. They complain that companies like Penn National Gaming and Churchill Downs are making out like bandits at their expense. “We’re not here for casinos. That’s not what we’re here for,” said Michael-Corey Hinton, attorney for the Passamaquoddy Tribe. “We are here to restore our sovereignty and our ability to self-govern. Under federal law, that would include the right to game.” So they are here for casinos, after all.
Tribes also want more authority over taxes levied on their land and, among other things, handling of tribal criminal cases. They’ve gotten no 
help from Gov. Janet Mills (D), who blanched at the prospect of “expensive litigation.” She’s not entirely wrong, as tribes are expect to enforce stronger environmental policies, to the dismay of industry. Some lawmakers want to make things easier by extracting gambling from 21 other tribal proposals and dealing with it as a stand-alone … easier for lawmakers, maybe, as Augusta has turned a deaf ear to tribes in the past.
Maine tribes had bingo and slots back in the 1970s. No more, not once the settlement act was passed. If Maine law were changed to conform with IGRA, they’d be entitled to all the same forms of gambling from which Churchill Downs and Penn are profiting. “I get frustrated when I hear legislators talk about the need to protect their gaming constituents and jobs in their towns,” complained Penobscot Nation Chief Kirk Francis. “Penn National is not a constituent. They are a special interest that is temporarily operating a casino in Bangor. When that casino starts to lose money some day, they will be gone and–like the many other corporate interests that have come and gone in this state – they will leave behind lost jobs. The Penobscot Nation could be providing those jobs.”
A Penn lobbyist, upon hearing that, cried like a stuck pig, saying the state was “saturated” with gambling. Yeah, and that’s what Penn said when 
Oxford wanted to open a casino. It did and everybody’s doing just fine. “Our gross gaming revenues dropped significantly when the Oxford Casino opened in 2012, as our studies accurately predicted they would,” wailed Chris Jackson. Yeah, that free market sucks, doesn’t it? If Penn was so worried about profitability, maybe it shouldn’t have agreed to a 50% tax rate on slots. Casinos are always against high taxes—except when it’s the price of admission.
Added Jackson, “We think the people of Maine have said time and time again that they don’t want additional casinos in Maine. However, if there are additional casinos, we want to make sure they are regulated the same way with level of taxation and the same payout mandated by law to customers.” Fair enough.
* A ban on Internet gambling in Cambodia has resulted in an exodus of Chinese-owned businesses (30 casinos have closed) and tens of thousands of penniless Chinese construction workers left behind. A few, well-connected casinos stay in operation—even if you have to endure raw-sewage ditches to reach them. It’s who you knew and (we suspect) how much they are paid. As one Internet casino manager smilingly told a reporter, “We don’t have to explain things to you. If you stay longer, I’ll call the police.”
